


this heart, fossilized and silent (once was tender and once was violent)

by Chrmdpoet



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Blood, Blood Loss, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Broken Bones, Brutality, Camp Jaha, Character Death, Clexa, Death Threats, Deformity, Dehydration, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Nation - Freeform, Illnesses, Injury, Injury Recovery, Minor Character Death, Mutation, Polis, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Radiation Mutation, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Starvation, Survival Training, Threats of Violence, Travel to Polis, Treason, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-03-19 23:44:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 35
Words: 171,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3628650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrmdpoet/pseuds/Chrmdpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke is only three days into being a runaway when she realizes that she did not fully think this through. When she walked away from Camp Jaha, she took only herself, a handgun with limited ammunition, and the gnawing guilt inside her. Three days without food, water, fresh clothing, or bedding of any kind, however, and she is painfully aware of how foolish that decision had been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Story begins post-finale (s2), three days after Clarke leaves Camp Jaha. 
> 
> This story is primarily focused on Clarke, and it is about her internal struggle after the events of Mount Weather. It is about her healing process, and how she also grows and evolves through that process with Lexa. The romance/relationship aspects are slow-burn.
> 
> This is my first fic for The 100. I hope you all enjoy. Comments and Kudos are greatly appreciated. XO-Chrmdpoet

Clarke is only three days into being a runaway when she realizes that she did not fully think this through. When she walked away from Camp Jaha, she took only herself, a handgun with limited ammunition, and the gnawing guilt inside her. Three days without food, water, fresh clothing, or bedding of any kind, however, and she is painfully aware of how foolish that decision had been.

Her back aches from sleeping on the hard ground in the cool night air. She can already feel a thick layer of grime coating her clothes and her skin. Her hair feels stringy and gross, and she imagines that it probably _looks_ just as bad as it feels. Her ass itches, likely due to the leaf she used to wipe herself earlier this morning, and her body is all but screaming for her to turn around and flee; run back to shelter, to feasts, to friends and family and _baths_.

Still, she refuses to go back. She can't. She isn't ready to face her people after what she did to the innocents of Mount Weather, regardless of how necessary that choice felt and still feels.

She needs time to process, time to adjust, time to regret or forget or accept. She just needs time, and she doesn't care if she suffers through every second of it.

Her stomach clenches and groans as she sits at the edge of a small creek, her knees pulled up to support her hands as she scrapes the sharp edge of a small rock against the end of a stick. She has been at it for a while, repeating the motion over and over and over, and she doesn't stop despite how intensely her palms sting and her fingers cramp. The pain of her empty stomach caving in to devour itself is worse, _much_ worse, and all she can think, all she can _hope_ , is that if she can just sharpen this stick into a makeshift spear, then maybe she can catch a fish or two … or fifty. At this point, she feels like she could eat an entire deer on her own, or even one of those massive mutant gorillas.

A flash of pain sparks in her chest at the thought of the beast, because her mind doesn't flood with images of its wild eyes or with the echoes of its roar, but rather with the haunted, lovely gaze of ….

Clarke shakes her head to clear away the image and pulls a blistered hand up to swipe at the sweat on her dirt-streaked forehead. She hisses from the sting of the salt on her fresh wounds, but she pushes through the pain and goes right back to her sharpening. She is determined to get something in her stomach before dark.

She had not been able to convince herself to eat the berries she found the night before, too afraid they would turn out to be poisonous and she would down a handful to assuage her hunger only to spend a night or two violently vomiting into the bushes or keeling over on the spot. Beyond medicinal herbs and plants, Clarke has zero faith in what little else she remembers from her botany courses on the Ark. She considers it accomplishment enough that she knows how photosynthesis works … well, sort of. Regardless, she had fallen asleep on an empty stomach, the same empty stomach that still growls at her like it would maul her if it could.

It sort of feels like it already _is_ mauling her.

When the stick is finally sharp enough that Clarke can prick herself with it, she removes her boots and socks, rolls up her pant legs, and then rises on shaky legs and walks out into the creek. The water is cold but she grits her teeth and bears it, because there are no fish flopping around on the dirt and making this easy for her. She is going to have to suffer for her food.

Nightfall is approaching but the sun is still high enough that the creek is washed in orange and yellow hues, and Clarke can see the sunlight reflecting off the silvery backs of the small fish swimming around her legs. She is impatient when she first jabs her homemade spear into the water, eager to catch her dinner. She hits nothing but rock and loose soil, and her spear exits the water as clean and fishless as it had entered it. She lets out a sigh, shakes out the tension in her body, cracks her neck, and readies herself again.

Clarke watches the fish weave around her legs and around each other for a few moments before setting her sights on one of the larger ones. She watches it draw nearer and then she strikes, hard and fast. As soon as the spear goes into the water, Clarke jerks it back out and looks to its tip. There is nothing there, and she looks back down to see the fish she had aimed for still circling her legs, mocking her.

Letting out a harsh sigh that evolves into an annoyed growl, Clarke jabs the stick back down into the water. She jabs and jabs, checking quickly after each try, and every time, her spear comes up clean.

When the oranges and yellows of the sky deepen to red and then cool down to a soft blue, Clarke nearly sobs at her failure. She trudges out of the creek, her toes aching from the cold of the water, and grabs her socks and boots from the bank. The tiniest whimper escapes her throat as she swipes at the tears stinging her eyes before yanking on her socks and boots, picking up her spear, and heading away from the creek.

She resigns herself to the fact that she will go yet another night with her stomach empty and aching. Only _this_ time, she has two blister-covered palms to add to the mix and a headache pinging between her eyes that she assumes is from dehydration. She figures it's better not to drink directly from the rivers or creeks until she can find something to boil the water in to make it more potable or until it rains and she can collect the pure source directly. That is, unless she gets really desperate, and if she gets _really_ desperate … well then, Clarke figures she won't much care about whatever potentially dangerous bacteria or microorganisms might be living in the water, and she will simply suck it down like it's a fresh glass of lemonade on the hottest day of the year.

* * *

Cold hard ground isn't exactly ideal no matter where it is, but Clarke figures slightly hidden and slightly covered is better than open and completely exposed. She can't go back to the drop ship, and she refuses to revisit the bunker. There are too many ghosts lurking there, too much history carved into such a short amount of time. She will make her own shelter or she will go without.

She finds a tight space tucked under the jutted-out edge of a large boulder and claims the spot as her own before settling in and trying for the umpteenth time to start a fire.

There had always been someone else available to bring the flames to roaring life at the drop ship. There had always been someone else shouting their kill on the hunt and leading them all back to camp, eager and hungry. There had always been someone else around to provide the basic essentials, taking orders from Bellamy or herself or whoever happened to be yelling the loudest at the time.

Now, though, there is only her, worn and weary and _so damn hungry._

Clarke gathers a small pile of the driest leaves and grass and sticks she can find nearby and then drops them onto the dirt in front of her chosen home for the night. She sits, legs crossed, beside the pile and grabs the longest, skinniest stick of the bunch. She holds it vertically in the center of the small pile atop a thick, wide piece of bark and presses her blistered palms to it from both sides. Keeping her hands open and flat, she shimmies them rapidly along the stick's length, down toward the pile and then back up to start again, creating as much friction as possible. She does this over and over, ignoring the sting and ache in her hands, ignoring the exhaustion riddling her muscles and bones, ignoring the throb in her head … ignoring the lonely clench of her heart in her chest and the wet drops slipping down her cheeks. She ignores everything but a single thought— _fire, fire, fire._

She lets out a harsh sob and breaks her stick in half in a fit of anger when she slips in her motion and accidentally slices open the sensitive skin between her thumb and index finger. She doesn't bother with wiping her tears away as she rips off a piece of cloth from the bottom of her shirt and wraps it tightly around her right hand, tying it in a knot at the knuckle of her thumb. The tears are still there when she curls in a ball under the long edge of the boulder and drifts off to sleep with an empty stomach and stinging hands, an aching head and still no fucking fire.

* * *

Clarke shivers in her sleep, the cold seeping into her bones like a cancer intent on devouring her insides. Her brow furrows, images flitting through her mind of the things she can't forget, the people she can't let go of. She sees her own hands painted red with the blood she has shed. She sees the hatred in Jasper's eyes, hears the growl in his voice as he demands an explanation for her choice to kill his love. She sees the angry red flesh and agonized eyes frozen in death of the bodies and bodies and bodies littering the floor in Mount Weather.

She sees the hard line of Lexa's jaw, the steely resolve in her eyes. She hears the lilt of Lexa's betrayal, hears the quiver she tries to hide from her voice. She hears the Commander's solemn whisper and the rhythm of her walking away.

_May we meet again._

Clarke sighs, body curling further in on itself in her sleep, as her dreams then shift and she is standing in the Commander's tent. Lexa's gaze dances from Clarke's eyes to her lips, and Clarke feels the heat of her stare and then of her kiss. It washes over her, warm and comforting, like she is being enveloped in it, and she feels it _everywhere_.

Heat. Heat. _So much_ heat.

She startles awake when a loud pop sounds from somewhere behind her, and Clarke is shocked speechless to find a crackling fire, alive and flickering, where her pathetic pile of leaves had earlier been. She rubs at her eyes, a smile unconsciously tugging at her lips as she takes a moment to revel in the warmth embracing her, no longer only in her dream, but then realization snaps roughly into place and she scrambles up onto her feet as quickly as possible.

Yanking her gun from the holster on her hip, Clarke holds her weapon at the ready and squints into the darkness surrounding the outer glow of the fire that _she_ definitely did _not_ create.

But _someone_ did.

Inching her way around the fire, Clarke listens for any unnatural sounds in the surrounding forest. She hears nothing beyond the buzzing of the insects, the croaking of the toads, the breeze rippling through the leaves; nothing out of the ordinary. Her sight fails her as well. She sees nothing beyond the bright halo of the fire. Everything is dark, dark and quiet.

 _Grounders,_ Clarke thinks. She knows their capabilities, their grace in the forest. They move through the trees with such ease and silence. They could be watching her this very moment, entirely undetected. The thought makes Clarke uneasy.

Have they come to finish her off, a literal severing of their fruitless alliance? But then why build her a fire? Why keep her warm?

"All right," Clarke says, raising her voice just enough that its sleepy rasp carries, "I know you're out there, so you might as well come out."

She waits but no one steps forward. Nothing stirs.

Clarke keeps a tight grip on her gun and shifts anxiously from foot to foot, gaze darting around in each dark direction. She points her gun toward the fire and shouts, "What the hell is _this_?"

She nearly jumps out of her skin when a deep voice spills out from the black abyss of the forest.

"It is fire."

Clarke sucks in a sharp breath through her nose and fights the urge to roll her eyes. "Yeah," she grunts, turning toward the direction of the voice and pulling her gun up in front of her. "I got that, thanks, but why did you build me a fire?"

"For warmth," the voice responds, and Clarke huffs out an impatient sigh.

She is confused and irritable and tired and hurting and hungry and the slightest bit freaked, and she is _done_ with games.

"Why?" she snaps. "What do you want from me?"

The reply is swift. "I seek nothing," the voice answers. " _Faya kom heda_."

Clarke's breath catches roughly in her throat when she hears the term 'heda'. She knows very little Trigedasleng, but she has heard that word enough to know to whom it refers.

"A gift from the Commander," the Grounder clarifies from the shadows, and Clarke nods absentmindedly.

"Lexa," she whispers, the name so thick and bitter on her tongue and in her throat that she nearly chokes on it.

The rage bubbles up and spills over before she can contain it, and she kicks the ground toward the fire, a shower of dirt threatening to extinguish the flames but not quite managing. Clarke doesn't care. She shoves her gun back into its holster, rips her jacket off the ground and yanks it over her shoulders, grabs her hand-carved spear, and then walks away from the warmth and into the shadows.

"You can tell the Commander that I don't need her fire," she calls over her shoulder. "She's burned me enough already."

Her heart throbs with every step she takes, but she walks until she can't hear the pops of the flames anymore. She walks until the fire's glow disappears into the distance behind her.

She walks until she is numb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Faya kom Heda." - "Fire from the Commander."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the warm response to the first chapter! I hope you all enjoy this one as well. Comments and Kudos are greatly appreciated. XO-Chrmdpoet

Clarke wakes again to her hunger, yanked from an already fitful slumber by the pain in her stomach and the nausea it stirs. She barely gets her eyes opened before she is rolling over on the ground and dry-heaving into the crunchy leaves she had only just been resting on. She holds her hair back out of her face with one hand and uses the other to brace herself on the ground, groaning as her stomach clenches and feels like it has hardened into stone that is now chipping away inside her. She needs to eat.

She needs food, and more importantly, she needs water. Her throat is dry, scratchy and raw, significantly more so than even the night before. Her skin feels as dry as her throat and sore, and her head is pounding like her brain is trying to break free. It all causes a flare of panic to spark in her chest, an instinctual, primal fear that is enough to make her stir but alarmingly, not enough to make her desperate.

Pushing off the ground, Clarke steadies herself on her feet and then grabs her spear. Her eyes sting as she glances around, the sun pouring through the leaves overhead. She hasn't got a clue where she actually is. When she walked away from the Grounder the night before and from the fire he offered (the fire he offered on behalf of the one person Clarke can't even think about without simultaneous urges to cry and scream), she hadn't given a single thought to her direction. She had cared only about the distance, recklessly walking as far and as fast as she could until she couldn't bear to take another step, and when she reached that point, she just let herself collapse to the ground and within seconds, she was asleep.

The sound of running water reaches her and Clarke realizes she must not be too terribly far from the creek or maybe a small river. There is no telling how far she managed to trudge the night before in her fit of anger. She takes a deep breath and forces her tired legs to carry her toward the sound.

The source of the sound is another creek, or perhaps the same one, though here it is slightly deeper than where she had entered it before. Still, she can see clearly through to the creek bed, and she is relieved to see the sparkling backs of fish dancing beneath the water's surface. They shimmer in the sunlight, inviting her in with the promise of crispy flesh and succulent meat.

Removing her boots and socks is a slow process, as is the rolling of her pants and the shaky walk into the creek. Her muscles feel strained and unresponsive, her calves stinging as the cold water of the creek splashes around them. Her bones feel on the verge of cracking and crumbling beneath her skin, and her hands are so sore that she clenches her teeth with every move of her fingers and curl of her fists. Once Clarke is in the water, though, she tries to pull her focus sharply toward the small fish darting around below. She holds her spear tightly, and the grip bites at the shirt-bandaged cut on her hand but she ignores the pain in favor of the focus.

Today is the day. Day four. Day _fish_. Day _food_. Day _relief_.

The mere thought of eating makes her so impatient that she doesn't even bother tracking a fish before jabbing her spear down into the water. It comes out clean, and she growls at it, already angry. She glares at the fish as if they have personally offended her before stabbing her spear down into the water again. She feels the stick bump against the body of a fish and a flash of thrill ignites in her chest.

Clarke waits and watches, heart pounding, and then she strikes again. She doesn't realize that she closes her eyes halfway through the jab until she has to open them again to check the end of her spear. Her eyes burn like she wants to cry when she sees its clean point, but few tears manage to rise to the surface.

"How can it be _this_ hard?" she groans to herself and slams the spear down into the water again. When she sees it miss yet again, she lets out an angry shout and petulantly stomps out of the creek before flopping down on the ground with a thump.

What the hell had she been thinking, walking away from camp completely unprepared? She has no tools beyond her gun, and she is realizing that she has even fewer survival skills than she previously thought. She is quickly coming to understand that a basic knowledge of what is needed and of how to do something does _not_ equate to actual _skill_. Knowledge doesn't give her patience. The how's of surviving have never lived in her muscles or in her bones, never traveled beyond her brain. Such things were never needed until she was sent to the ground, and even then, what a drastic difference it makes to not be entirely on one's own. What the _hell_ had she been thinking?

Or maybe _that_ is the problem. She hadn't been thinking. Or worse, she just didn't care.

Clarke lies on the ground at the edge of the creek for a long time, rubbing her hands over her aching stomach. When her forearm bumps against the gun holster on her hip, Clarke moves her hand to finger the weapon, and for a brief moment she actually considers trying to shoot a fish. Then again, if she can't spear one of the damned things, what makes her think she can successfully strike one with a bullet? Besides, she needs to save what little ammunition she has. She may need it for protection in the days ahead.

 _If there's anything left of me to protect_ , she thinks, and the thought should startle her but it doesn't.

Clarke lets her hand fall limply away from her gun, and she blows out a long sigh as she stares up at the sky. It's a bright day, clear and blue, and there isn't a single cloud in sight. Her hope for rain dies a painful death in the desert of her throat, but she can't really be mad about it. The sky is so beautiful from the ground, even if it denies her something essential.

Her many drawings of the sky and of the ground had always been intricate, breathtaking even. She took pride in those drawings and in the yearning they seemed to stir in her, but here, on the ground, she sees how short of the mark those drawings truly were. No amount of beauty in a sketch or painting could capture the clean wash of the air in her lungs or the gentle caress of the breeze on her skin, the kaleidoscope of colors in the forest or the ripple of water over flesh and pebbles. No amount of skill could have allowed her to express the vastness above, the endlessness of its stretch and promise, whether painted blue or gray, rolling with clouds or clear and calm, or faded to black and speckled with the twinkling balls of fire Clarke had grown up among. Nothing, _nothing_ , could ever perfectly express the wonder of this wonder.

Clarke tries not to let her mind wander as she stares into the vast blue above. She tries not to think about the faces that haunt her every time she closes her eyes. She tries not to hear the echoes of goodbyes ricocheting off the hardening walls of her heart. She tries not to feel the embraces still lingering on the slopes of her arms, the kisses still burning the swell of her lips. She tries not to get lost in herself, in the terrifying realization that in this one moment, the thought of sinking into the ground beneath her and disappearing seems more inviting than intimidating.

She fails at each.

"You will never catch fish with your back on the ground, your spear out of the water, and your eyes on the sky."

Clarke startles at the voice suddenly shattering her train of thought, but she doesn't jump to her feet. She doesn't have the energy nor does she feel the need to. She recognizes the voice. It's the same as the one that echoed to her from the shadows the night before.

"I'm hoping one will just fall out of the sky and land in my mouth," she drawls, her voice as dry and aching as her body.

"Fish do not fall from the sky," the Grounder responds, not a hint of amusement lacing his voice. He is matter-of-fact, as if he assumes Clarke _actually_ expects fish to fall from the sky.

"Yeah, well, neither did people, right?" Clarke fires back, eyes still trained upward. "But here I am, fresh from space."

The Grounder is silent for a moment and Clarke huffs out a hard sigh, but then a shadow suddenly looms over her, blotting out the sun, and she finds herself staring up at a painted face looking down on her with amusement.

"Not so fresh," the Grounder says as he studies her, and it takes Clarke a moment to realize that he has just made a joke. It was a joke at her expense, but a joke nonetheless, and she doesn't even care that her entire body hurts when she lets out a raspy bark of laughter.

"Fair enough," she concedes before pushing up on her elbows and then rolling over onto her knees. She braces herself on the ground before rising carefully to her feet.

Once she is standing, Clarke observes the man opposite her. He is tall, _very_ tall, with long dark hair twisted away from his face and tied into place at the back of his head. His beard, dotted with gray, is long as well and is decorated with thin braids throughout its bushy growth. His body is covered fully in the typical strappy, armored clothing of the Grounders, though his thick arms are exposed and covered almost entirely in tattoos. Daggers line the belt at his waist, along with one long sword. A quiver of arrows is strapped around his chest and dangling off his back and a long bow is latched to it.

His eyes are light, a soft blue that appears almost gray next to the dark paint that marks his face. They remain fixed on Clarke, trailing down her body and back up as if assessing the damage she has managed to inflict on herself now that he is close enough to truly do so.

"You are weak," he says next, and Clarke bristles but then simply deflates at the words.

"You're observant," she huffs and then takes a few steps back to lean against a nearby tree. She is exhausted by even the slightest exertion. "Why are you following me?"

"I am Javas," he tells her, ignoring the question.

Clarke narrows her eyes at him. "Javas," she repeats and he nods. "I'm Clarke."

"I know who you are," Javas grunts. "Sky Commander."

Clarke swallows thickly at the words and shakes her head. "I'm nobody's commander."

"You led the Sky People to victory on the mountain."

The statement, though true, strikes Clarke so hard that she physically jolts and has to reach back to brace herself on the tree. She closes her eyes and grits her teeth, sucking in a sharp breath through her nose.

"You know about that?" she bites out through her clenched teeth, opening her eyes again to pin them on the Grounder.

Javas stares at her for a long time, silent, before simply nodding.

"How?" Clarke demands to know.

"I was there," Javas replies coolly despite the obvious bite in Clarke's tone.

"Your people left mine to die," Clarke croaks, now glaring at the Grounder. "So, unless you have eyes on the back of your head, Javas, I'm not sure how you would have seen us survive while you were _walking away_."

Javas says nothing, and his silence only exacerbates Clarke's anger.

It has been only four days since the massacre at Mount Weather, and surely news doesn't travel that quickly. Who would have spread it, after all? Her own people? No. They have no one to spread it _to_. They have only each other.

The people of Mount Weather? No. They are dead. Clarke's insides feel like earthquakes at the thought.

"Did you stay behind?" she asks, and then her stomach drops as her next question spills into her mind before it floods through her lips. "Did _Lexa order you_ to stay behind? Have you been following me all this time?"

Javas, again, says nothing, but he doesn't have to. Clarke can see the confirmation in his eyes. Lexa _had_ ordered him to stay at the mountain, to stay and watch, to wait.

Clarke thinks of the fire Javas built her. 'A gift from the Commander', he'd called it.

The realization is swift and deep and jarring and infuriating and _painful_ , and Clarke feels overwhelmed by it. Her eyes prick with tears that she is too dehydrated to cry as it sinks in. Lexa had not only ordered this man to stay behind as the others retreated. She had not only ordered him to wait and watch for the outcome. She had ordered him to remain with the Sky People, or rather with _Clarke_ , even after the war was over. She had ordered him to watch Clarke, to follow her.

It was the only logical explanation Clarke could think of.

"Have you," Clarke tries but her voice cracks roughly and the words die in her throat. She licks her chapped lips and swallows painfully before trying again. "Have you been reporting back to her about me? Sending her information somehow?"

Javas is silent and stoic once again, but then he gives her one swift nod and turns away from her. Clarke watches as the Grounder then bends down and picks up the spear she left on the ground. He studies the point of the stick and nods to himself before turning toward the creek.

Javas stares at the water for only a moment before pulling his arm back and then thrusting forward, throwing the spear hard and fast into the creek.

Clarke gasps so hard she chokes when Javas then walks out into the water to retrieve the spear and pulls it from the creek with two sparkling silver fish stuck to its end. Her anger is momentarily stunned silent as Javas trudges over and drops the spear onto the ground at Clarke's feet, one of the fish still twitching on the stick.

"Eat," he tells her, and his voice is hard and demanding. It isn't a request, and Clarke's anger sparks back to life at his tone.

"Is that a command?" she snaps at him. "Did Lexa tell you feed me in addition to _following_ me?"

The thought makes her insides feel like lead—heavy, heavy, heavy—because she knows it's true. Lexa had sent this man to care for her, to ensure her survival if Clarke, herself, could not.

Clarke wants to melt at the realization. She wants to crumble. She wants to fall to her knees and bite into the fish at her feet while they are still twitching and _sate_ herself.

Instead, she hardens further. She stands taller even as the effort exhausts and pains her. She bends only enough to pick up the blunt end of her spear and stands it, point down, in front of her before pressing her bare foot atop the bottom fish. She pushes with her foot and yanks the spear out and clean, her eyes on Javas the entire time.

She stumbles but regains her balance as she then walks over to collect her socks and boots. She doesn't even bother to put them on her feet before shuffling past Javas and toward the trees. She turns back just before disappearing into the thick of the forest and says, "I don't want her handouts." She glances to the fish on the ground and her stomach growls painfully, but she grits her teeth and swallows down the pain of her need. "So you can stop trying, Javas, and you can tell your Commander that as well."

Clarke doesn't hear Javas follow after her when she heads back into the forest, but she knows he does. She tries to ignore the way her heart tugs at the thought that, in a way, it isn't just Javas.

Lexa is following her too.


	3. Chapter 3

Clarke wanders aimlessly through the forest after leaving Javas by the creek. She weaves through the trees, leaning on each one as she trudges along, stumbling every few steps from closing her dry eyes to soothe the sting in them. She doesn't have to walk very far or for very long before her body begs her to stop, begs her to rest.

She knows she shouldn't. She knows she should be searching for food and potable water. She should be trying to stay alive, because it feels like someone poured sand into her throat and punctured holes in her gut and is currently in the process of hammering nails into her brain. She hasn't relieved herself since the morning before and she feels no need to now. Her tank is empty, her body bone dry. She doubts she could pass any urine even if she tried.

It's hot out, as it has been the last few days in the early afternoons, the last bits of Summer and Autumn blowing through the forest before fading into cool nights that will only continue to grow colder. The soft heat pulls droplets of sweat up to bead at Clarke's hairline and between her breasts and at the base of her spine, and it is all she has left to give, the last bits of her moisture dripping out and away.

Still, she keeps walking, but her breathing is beginning to feel labored, like the desert in her throat has somehow closed off the passage of air to her lungs. It makes her chest uncomfortably tight and her head foggy, and she is just _so_ incredibly tired.

She feels like she is already past the point of staying alive, like she might just be too late, and that thought should drive her to action. It should scare her enough to make her keep moving, keep working, keep _living_ , but even with the pain pricking in her eyes and the gnawing hunger growling in her stomach, all Clarke can think about is sleeping.

Stumbling her way only a few steps further, Clarke decides to give in to the urge and sinks down to the ground, promising herself that it will only be for a moment. She lets out a hard, ragged sigh and her following inhale is shallow and offers her little relief. She presses her forehead into her hand and groans before scooting down even lower to the ground. She lies out on a bed of crunchy leaves beneath a wide and towering tree and tells herself not to close her eyes.

She closes them anyway.

* * *

It feels as if only a minute or two has passed when Clarke stirs to the feeling of a calloused hand sliding under her hair and cupping the back of her neck, pulling her up into a sitting position. She jerks awake, hand jumping to the gun on her hip, but another calloused hand wraps around her wrist to stop her.

"You are safe."

Clarke's heart pounds furiously, painfully, beneath her ribs in her panic, but then realization slips rapidly in and her stinging eyes adjust and focus on Javas's face hovering over her. She jerks away from him, or she tries to, but Javas holds her firmly in place and reaches for a water canteen that he then ushers up to her lips.

"Drink," he tells her, tipping the canteen up and giving her no choice.

In a haze, Clarke actually opens her mouth and lets a rush of fluid pass from the canteen and through her crusty, cracked lips. It floods into her mouth like a holy rain and she chokes as she sucks it down her ragged throat, but she doesn't care. She swallows it loudly, greedily, and it shocks her how quickly the relief it offers hits her. The ache in her throat lessens, the bitter wash in her mouth becomes slightly more bearable, and the pounding in her head dwindles to a hard throb. Just that slight bit of relief makes her desperate for more, and Clarke eagerly leans her head up to indulge.

Javas obliges with a gruff, "Good," but as soon as the word slips across his lips, Clarke realizes what she is doing. She realizes who is _really_ helping her. She realizes that she has to stop.

It takes every bit of strength and stubbornness she has within her to jerk her head away at the last second, cool water spilling down her cheek and neck, wasted. "No," she sputters around the bit of water that gets in her mouth.

Clarke pushes away from Javas, and this time he lets her go. She tumbles away painfully, elbow digging into the hard ground as she rolls sideways. "No," she says again, reaching up to swipe across her wet cheek with the back of her sleeve. "I told you I don't want her handouts and that’s what that is." She points at the water canteen and then waves her arm to indicate Javas himself. "That's basically what _you_ are."

"Yes," Javas sighs, not bothering to argue. He settles himself fully onto the ground then, leaning his broad back up against the tree Clarke slept under, and stretches out his legs.

Clarke scoots a little farther away from him but doesn't bother to sit up or stand. She just rolls back, shifts until she is as comfortable as she can possibly get which basically isn't at all, and keeps her eyes trained on the Grounder.

They stare at one another for a long time, Clarke studying Javas and Javas studying Clarke. He looks weary and frustrated, resigned, and Clarke feels a pang of guilt strike her heart. He is only here because Lexa ordered him to be. He is only trying to fulfill his duties, which include offering aid, and yet Clarke has been nothing but difficult. She has been angry and resistant, dismissive, and all because of the woman who sent him.

Clarke sighs and shakes her head, the leaves crunching beneath the motion. "Look," she says, "I'm sorry you have to do this, follow me and everything. I wish you didn't."

"You would be dead," Javas grunts, and his expression makes it clear that he believes as much to be undeniably true.

Clarke gets the impression that Javas knows more about her time in the woods than _she_ does. How much has he helped her that she hasn't actually seen? She wants to ask but instead she just says, "Probably."

"You are difficult," Javas tells her, and Clarke chuckles dryly. She is relieved, though, to find the ache in her throat significantly lessened by her earlier drink.

She nods. "I know."

"Why?" Javas asks, and Clarke is surprised by the question. "You suffer," he tells her, "but you choose to. Why?"

His words only prick at the surface at first, but then they dig in and take hold, and Clarke feels like she can't breathe. Her eyes slip closed and then she is wrapped in her father's arms. She only whispers that she loves him, but inside she is screaming. The image of his face when the Ark rips open and sends him floating brands itself across the backs of her eyelids.

She is asking forgiveness as she slips into her best friend's familiar embrace and squeezes Wells like she hasn't in too long. She wastes too much of that moment hating her mother, and she doesn't know it will be the last hug they ever share.

She is cutting throats in mercy kills and kissing lips that aren't hers to kiss and trying to keep people alive while feeling like she is dying, and she is barely hanging on every second but they keep looking to her for answers. They keep looking to her to decide. They keep looking at her.

She is burning hundreds of people alive and telling herself it is necessary. She gags at the smell when they open the door, the char that filters into her nostrils and takes up residence there. She can taste their souls on the back of her tongue.

She is pleading for Finn's life and slipping metal between his ribs. She is covered in blood, and when her hands are clean again, they still look crimson to her.

She is pushing her people, forcing them to trust her, urging them to support an alliance. She is blending and melding and losing herself in battle plans and fear, in false confidence and small bursts of courage, in the green eyes of a young girl who _knows_ , _knows_ because there are people looking at her too.

She is hiding in the woods with the green-eyed girl, scarves pulled over their heads, while the earth rips open beneath a missile and buries too many of their people alive.

She is a warrior and she is a child, and so is Lexa. They are two children making the decisions of gods, hardening and softening together.

Lexa is harder, and Clarke is left behind.

She is pulling a lever and her heart is in her throat. It sinks to her stomach and burns with the children of Mount Weather. It never stops burning, and there is ash in her veins.

A cracked and guttural sob rips up from Clarke's throat before she can stop it, and she presses her hand to her mouth to muffle the sound. She sucks in sharp breaths over the top of her hand until she feels her heart calming. When it does, she swallows dryly and opens her eyes to look at Javas once more.

She could tell him about the war inside her but instead she lies and says, "I don't know."

Javas looks at her like he doesn't believe her. He looks at her like he has war in him too. He looks at her and shakes his head. "Then you are foolish," he tells her. "It is better to die for a cause than for the unknown."

She understands. Suffer for a reason or not at all.

Clarke nods and the weight in her chest is too much, so she rolls onto her back and jokes, "Is spite a good enough cause?"

Javas lets out a gruff laugh that surprises Clarke, and she glances over to see him shuffling a satchel into his lap from his side. He pulls out two short strips of dried meat and holds them out toward Clarke.

"Are we really going to do this again?" Clarke groans, and Javas nudges the strips toward her again.

"The Commander bids you eat."

Clarke shakes her head and rolls over onto her opposite side, putting her back to Javas. "I hate to be a pain in the ass, Javas, but if the Commander wants me to eat so badly, then she's going to have to march out here and shove the food down my throat herself." She sighs, closing her eyes and letting the heaviness in her body spread and take over. "And since we both know that's not going to happen, you might as well stop trying."

She falls asleep without ever hearing an answer.

* * *

"Do you wish to die in the forest, Clarke?"

Clarke jumps almost violently at the familiar voice spilling into her shallow sleep. Her eyes fly open but sting terribly when the sunlight spills in. She winces but rolls over and looks up from the ground, shielding her eyes, before slowly pulling herself to her feet. A wave of dizziness hits her as soon as she stands, and she throws her hands out to balance herself until it passes. When it does, she comes face to face with none other than the Commander herself.

Lexa leans against a nearby tree, dressed in only light armor over her long cloak and absent any face paint. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and she stares at Clarke with an eyebrow arched and a hard line set across her lips. An army of emotions seems to war within her eyes—anger, agony, worry, affection—and her tone is riddled with her displeasure.

Clarke's heart jumps at the sight of her, the way it always has, the ways she fears it always will, but then that single second of thrill crumbles away to make room for the rage Clarke feels boil in her veins every time she thinks of Lexa. It ripples through her system, hot and screaming, and Clarke's entire body goes rigid. Her jaw works back and forth as she glares at the Commander and lets the memory of her betrayal spill up and out onto the surface.

"Wow, what an honor," Clarke drawls, and she presses a hand to her temple. Her head is pounding again, so forcefully that she can hardly hear herself think. She is determined not to show her weakness on too grand a scale, but the motion is automatic. Her body's instinct is to soothe the pain, but no amount of pressing actually helps. That doesn't stop her from trying though. "The great and powerful Commander has deigned to come and check on me herself, or did you just come all the way out here to change your mind and walk away again? We both know you're good at that."

Lexa's eyes flash at the words, but she doesn't take the bait. In fact, she doesn't respond at all to Clarke's words and that only infuriates the blonde more.

"What do you want, Lexa?" Clarke bites out, and the words don't hiss as harshly as she wanted them to. They lack the ferocity that she feels in her veins and in her soul.

"I want an answer," Lexa tells her coolly, and Clarke can tell by her tone that the woman before her is less Lexa at the moment and much more Commander. She isn't sure if that is a good or bad thing, though Clarke leans more toward the latter. "Do you wish to die in the forest?"

"What the hell kind of question is that?" Clarke snaps, and she sees the way Lexa's nostrils flare in response, but the Commander maintains her composure.

Her voice is cool and controlled when she replies, "A necessary one, and one for which I expect an answer."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the support for this story. All of your comments and kudos are greatly appreciated. Enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

Lexa's gaze is fierce, determined, and _knowing_ despite her question, and it makes Clarke's skin crawl and squirm. She feels penetrated, like no matter what answer she gives, Lexa already knows the truth. She is already beneath Clarke's surface. She is already inside. She sees Clarke. She sees everything.

Clarke wonders what her insides look like, if they are as black and as bloody as they feel. She wonders if that's how Lexa sees her now—rotten, broken, dying. She wonders why she cares.

Clarke swallows and hates the way it burns all the way down her dry, itching throat. She shuffles on her feet, clenching her hands in and out of fists and appreciating the hard bite of pain in her palms with each squeeze. It keeps her focused, keeps her alert. It does not, however, keep her voice from cracking when she licks across her chapped lips and finally gives her answer. "No."

"No?" Lexa immediately challenges, one eyebrow arching up as she purses her lips. "You do _not_ wish to die?"

"No," Clarke croaks again, and she curses the complete lack of conviction in the single word, the way it wobbles on her tongue and doesn't seem to fit her voice when she finally pushes it through. She curses herself for not knowing whether or not she truly means it.

Her knees shake as she stands across from the last person she ever wanted to see her as weak, and she hates that for even only a moment, a single fleeting second, she wonders if Lexa still finds her beautiful like this—dirty and stinking and starving and withering away into nothing. She curses herself for the way Lexa always seems to get under her skin and down into her veins. She curses herself for ever trusting the Commander at all.

Most of all, though, she curses the small and trembling part of herself that aches to close the distance and sink into Lexa's arms, kiss her raw and bloody.

She yearns for contact. Five days feels like a lifetime to be alone and in pain, untouched and unloved and dying. Clarke aches for the comforting touch of someone she knows and of someone she knows cares about her no matter how strained things have become, no matter how much Clarke wishes Lexa didn't care about her at all.

Sometimes Clarke manages to convince herself that she doesn't, that Lexa _doesn't_ care about her. She imagines a victorious smirk touching the Commander's lips the moment she turned her back to Clarke and walked away from the mountain. She imagines their kiss as a strategy or maybe even a goodbye. She imagines Lexa knew all along that she would betray Clarke.

She imagines the lies because they make it so much easier to stay angry, frozen in her fury. The lies make it easier to hold onto her grudge, to cling to it like it the lover that Lexa almost became. The lies make it easier to grind her softer memories of Lexa into dust and twist what remains into a monster, but Clarke can't do that now, not in this moment. She is too tired and Lexa is too adamant and too beautiful, and Clarke wants to scream.

She feels torn. It is as if the war they fought, what little of it they actually fought together, has slipped inside her somehow and taken up residence in her soul. She is a broken battlefield, and her emotions are armies each refusing to surrender to the other. It takes all she has within her to stand still and steady, to hold her head high and pretend she isn't ready to break, but Clarke refuses to give Lexa the satisfaction of thinking she needs her.

"No," she repeats, and it is louder, clearer, and stronger somehow. "I don't want to die."

Lexa stares at her for a long moment before nodding once and shouting, " _Sanch_!"

Clarke's brow furrows but then a fresh wave of anger and annoyance rolls through her when Javas appears seemingly out of nowhere carrying a medium-sized pail and the same small water canteen Clarke had earlier sipped from. He gives her a knowing look as he trudges forward, and Clarke's stomach audibly growls when the pail is then set before her and the scents of the cooked meats and fresh berries inside drift out and up into her nose. She groans against her will and presses a hand to her stomach.

"Eat," Lexa commands, nodding toward the items. "Drink."

Clarke nearly caves. Her dry mouth actually waters as her stomach screams in response to the food's aroma. Her knees wobble, and her body begs her to give in. Every cell in her body urges her to get the hell over herself and drop to the ground right this instant, urges her to dig into the small feast awaiting her and drain that canteen dry. She holds her ground though, clenching her hands into tight, biting fists again. She presses her fingers in so tightly that she feels the warm moisture of fresh blood oozing out of the cut between her index finger and thumb and seeping through the cloth of the shirt strip wrapped around it. It makes her woozy, but she remains conscious and on her feet. Her lip trembles as she lifts her chin, but she is proud of her defiance nonetheless when she growls out a hard, "No."

Lexa's brow jumps up again. "Then you _do_ wish to die," she accuses, and Clarke bristles.

"Why, because I don't want your food?" Clarke shoots back, expression contorted with both her anger and her disbelief. "It's not the same thing. It doesn't mean I want to _die_."

Lexa's jaw clenches, works back and forth for a moment, and then the Commander licks across the front of her teeth and says, "I do not believe you."

Clarke feels the challenge like a hard punch to the gut, and she lets out a huff of a laugh that sounds more pained than amused. "Well, I really don't care what you do or don't believe, Lexa," she snaps, "so I guess that's not really my problem, is it?"

There is stone silence between them for what feels like centuries, so long that Clarke's wobbling knees threaten to give out on her. Lexa's eyes drill into her, ice green and alight with fury. She is angry, and Clarke can practically feel it wafting off of the brunette.

When Lexa finally breaks the silence and speaks, her voice is a low, deadly melody. " _Gon we, Javas_ ," she says though her gaze never leaves Clarke.

Out of the corner of her eye, Clarke sees Javas turn and shuffle off through the trees, putting some distance between himself and his Commander. He disappears quickly in the growing dark as the day wanes into a crimson-dipped purple. Lexa has ordered him away, and the realization makes Clarke's stomach churn uncomfortably. Lexa is furious and Clarke is weak, and now they are alone.

"You disrespect me in front of one of my warriors," Lexa says quietly once Javas is gone.

Clarke gapes, stunned for a moment, before bursting into laughter. It is hard and raspy, made ugly by the anger and mockery that laces its rhythm. "Are you serious?" she gasps through her laughter. "Lexa, you _betrayed_ me! You betrayed our alliance, and you walked away like none of it ever mattered. You left my people to die in that mountain. I don't owe you _anything_ , especially not respect."

There is silence between them yet again, and it seems to stretch out and on for hours, days, _centuries_ , and Clarke is _so_ very tired. The shaking in her knees has traveled up her thighs and into her belly, and she trembles until she buckles at the waist. She bends forward, just enough to plant her wounded hands on her knees and brace herself.

And then ….

"I make the decisions I must," Lexa whispers, and Clarke glances up to see conflicted, worried eyes watching her. She hadn't heard the Commander move but Lexa is closer to her now, just a step or two as if their bodies are tethered together by an invisible cord and when Clarke buckled over, it yanked Lexa forward and closer.

The Commander's hand is extended just slightly forward as if she had been reaching out to Clarke, reaching out to help her, but when Clarke looks up at her, Lexa snaps her hand back in and to her side. She knows that Clarke will not accept her touch if she will not even accept her food. Clarke can see that knowledge in the Commander's eyes.

Lexa steps back again and subtly clears her throat before speaking, and when she does, her voice is no longer a whisper. It is strong and unwavering. "I will not apologize for keeping my people alive."

"At the expense of mine!" Clarke growls, pushing off her knees to stand up again. Dizziness racks her brain, and she presses a hand to her temple as she sways on her feet, but she doesn't let herself fall. She refuses to sit down. She refuses to drop. Anything less than a rigid spine feels like surrender.

"Victory stands on the back—"

"Of sacrifice," Clarke snaps, cutting Lexa off. "Yeah, I remember."

Lexa's jaw works back and forth for only a moment, a subtle show of discomfort that Clarke has learned to recognize in the brunette, but then she stiffens her spine, blinks slowly, and nods. "Then you understand."

Clarke summons every bit of her anger and bitterness to the surface. It fuels the next steps she takes as she shuffles forward. She moves in closer, slipping into Lexa's space, and the air burns around them. It is hot and thick with the tension sparking in their eyes and arcing between their crawling flesh as they stand off, one towering and one trembling. "Your victory didn't stand on the back of sacrifice, Lexa," she breathes hotly. "It stood on the back of betrayal."

Lexa breathes sharply through her nose, the scent of blood and sweat and dirt wafting off of Clarke and filtering in, gritty and familiar. She swallows thickly but holds steady in her resolve and stature. "It was not personal," she says, her voice low and raspy as it exits her lips quieter than intended.

They stare at one another a long moment, the silence like a rapid pulse between them; throbbing, alive.

Clarke's eyes sting as she sucks in a shuddering breath that only seems to fuel the fire inside. "It was to me," she whispers, and the truth of the words stabs at her insides until she deflates.

And for only a moment, a single flickering moment, she swears she sees those same wounds reflected in Lexa's eyes, adding to the haunt that Clarke has always recognized in their depths. But the moment passes. It vanishes, and Lexa's mask falls firmly back into place.

It is almost as if it never fell away in the first place.

Clarke sighs and turns away from the Commander. She takes shallow, shuffled steps back toward the shadow of the tree she had rested under before. It is dark now, and the forest around them is lit only by the moon and the glowing plants just off to their left. By accident, she kicks the bucket of food Javas brought her, but she doesn't manage to knock it over.

The clang of the kick, though, seems to stir Lexa back to her cause, because the Commander clears her throat and says, "You must eat, Clarke."

Clarke shakes her head and only half turns to face Lexa. "I know," she admits, her tone riddled with her exhaustion. "I know I need to eat. I _want_ to eat. I just want to do it on my own terms, get my own food."

"What will you do?" Lexa scoffs, taking a step closer. "Coax a fire to life with your mind? _Ask_ the fish to jump from the river and cook themselves?"

Clarke rolls her eyes. "Don't mock me."

"Then do not be a _child_!" Lexa snarls, and Clarke jolts at the near-desperate tone of the Commander's voice, the anger slipping and sliding along its lilt.

She turns to fully face Lexa then, and she can see the tension in the brunette's body. She can see the water in her wild eyes. It shimmers in the moonlight, and Clarke almost chokes at the sight of it.

"You have made no _true_ effort to feed yourself or quench your thirst," Lexa says through gritted teeth. "Your attempts are half-hearted. Your drive is weak. You have not even bothered to bathe yourself." She takes another step forward and now her eyes are emerald fire. "You are emotional and reckless, punishing yourself for acts that cannot be undone, and now you can hardly stand."

Clarke's chest feels tight and too full. Her heart pushes against her ribs like it is trying to escape, and her eyes burn when they should water because her body is too dry and too empty. Her hands shake, and it feels like there are earthquakes between her teeth when she barely manages to choke out a ragged whisper. "Stop it."

But Lexa is on fire, throwing Clarke's terrifying truths at her as if they are daggers, and the Commander's aim is superb.

"You cannot provide for yourself if you are dead in the leaves," Lexa tells her before sucking in a harsh, loud breath and then releasing it in one long, shaky stream of air that Clarke feels drive into her even from across a distance. It makes her feel dizzier than she already does.

She stumbles backward until her feet hit the roots of the tree and her back pushes against its rough bark. She leans against it, letting it hold her up as she takes deep breaths that never seem to make it fully into her lungs. She is running only on fumes, or rather, on anger and sheer stubbornness. They are the only things keeping her on her feet.

"I don't need your help, Lexa," Clarke tries, and she nearly bites through her lip in anger when she hears the whimper in her voice. She knows Lexa hears it too.

Sighing, Lexa shakes her head. "You are wrong," she whispers, and then she moves.

Lexa crosses the distance between them just as Clarke is sliding down the tree trunk, unable to hold herself up any longer, and surprises Clarke by kneeling in front of her.

Clarke actually sucks in a shallow gasp at the sight of Lexa dropping to her knees. It is the most humbled position she has ever seen the Commander take, and it is jarring. It is breathtaking. It is somehow simultaneously heart-wrenching and supremely satisfying.

Clarke lets herself fall the rest of the way to the ground, and her ass crunches atop the leaves as her legs flop out in front of her, and Lexa is caught between them.

They hold each other's gazes, and Lexa's green eyes almost seem to glow in the moonlight filtering through the overhead branches. Clarke hates that she finds them so beautiful.

"You do not _want_ my help, Clarke," Lexa says quietly, "but you do _need_ it."

The Commander then turns and stretches to grab the pail of food and the small canteen. She brings them back to the partial triangle Clarke's legs make around her and sets them on the ground beside Clarke's thigh. She reaches into the pail and pulls out a now cold piece of cooked boar and brings it up to Clarke's lips.

Clarke surprises herself when she doesn't jerk away, but then she doesn't open her mouth either.

"Please," Lexa whispers, and Clarke loathes the way that single word slipping across this particular girl's lips makes her shiver, makes her want to surrender.

Clarke glares at Lexa in the moonlight. "I hate you," she says and the words sound much more convincing than they feel.

Lexa only nods and nudges the piece of meat forward again. "You may still hate me with a full stomach, Clarke," she replies coolly. "Fiercer even than you do now."

Clarke holds onto those words like a promise and leans forward. She pretends not to feel the slide of Lexa's index finger against her chin when she bites into the meat before pulling it from the Commander's hand and leaning back against the tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Sanch!" - "Lunch!"  
> "Gon we, Javas." - "Leave, Javas."


	5. Chapter 5

Clarke falls back onto the hard ground with a huff. Running her hands up and down the length of her stomach, she groans and resists the urge to vomit. The food pail next to her is entirely empty, as is the water canteen, and Clarke has traded the pain of starvation and dehydration for the agony of overeating and feeling far too full.

Lexa sits across from her, leaning against a tree a fair distance away and watching Clarke in silence. She is a shadow, and were Clarke not aware of her presence, it would be as if she wasn’t there at all.

Clarke groans again when she shifts onto her side and pulls her knees up toward her chest. A fresh wave of nausea rocks and roars through her system, and Clarke abhors the way her mouth salivates like it is preparing for the result. She swallows down the excess saliva in her mouth but it only makes it worse, and a second later, she is pushing up onto her knees and crawling quickly toward the nearby shrubbery to release some of the contents of her stomach onto the ground.

After the last wave surges up and spills through, Clarke takes a deep breath and uses her sleeve to wipe across her mouth. She pinches her fingers around her nose until it stops burning and then takes another deep, soured breath before slowly crawling back over to her resting place. She glances across the short distance to the opposite tree where she can only just make out Lexa’s form, and while she cannot actually distinguish any of the Commander’s features, she knows Lexa is watching her.

“Shut up,” Clarke grunts as she lies back down and curls onto her side.

“I have said nothing,” Lexa replies, and Clarke rolls her eyes and sighs.

The bitter smell of her breath as it releases and hovers in front of her face makes her nose wrinkle, and she wonders how the Grounders brush their teeth. She has never seen any of them do it, but Clarke assumes they must because Lexa’s breath had been lovely and fresh when they kissed. Do they use toothbrushes and toothpaste like the Sky People do? Do they have some other kind of tool or method for accomplishing the task? Clarke wonders if she can get in on it if they do.

“I can hear your smugness all the way over here,” Clarke quips, and she thinks she hears the tiniest hint of a sigh that sounds more like the ghost of a laugh from the Commander.

Lexa shifts her position slightly, but she does not move out into the moonlight, and Clarke wonders if she is deliberately attempting to hide her expressions. “Your hearing must be as affected by your swollen stomach as it was by your empty one then, Clarke,” the Commander says, “because you ignored my warning to pace your consumption and now you hear smugness where there is none.”

“Really?” Clarke counters dryly. “Because that subtle ‘I told you so’ you just gave me sounded a lot like smugness to me.”

“Interesting,” Lexa responds coolly.

“Interesting?” Clarke drawls.

She almost wishes she could see the tiny hint of a smile that she just _knows_ is painted at the corner of the Commander’s mouth when Lexa then goes on to say, “To me, it sounded like truth.”

The bitter taste in Clarke’s mouth hardly compares to that of her next words. She slices through the easy rhythm and calm of the banter with a cutting remark that makes her stomach churn at the same time that it makes her chest swell with satisfaction. “Funny,” she retorts, “because I thought it sounded a lot like truth when you agreed to an alliance, too. I guess we’ve both got hearing problems.”

Silence envelops them, though the air becomes so thick with tension that it almost seems to hum around them. Clarke waits for Lexa’s anger. She waits for a biting response. She hopes for it, _craves_ it. She is itching to be taunted if for no other reason than that her insides burn and her head throbs with horrors she cannot unsee or undo, and Clarke is _eager_ for a reason to unleash that burden onto someone else.

Lexa is the best target, not only because she is part of Clarke’s pain but because Clarke knows Lexa will take it. Lexa will absorb it all. She will hold it in and under, and unlike Clarke, she will not break. She will not falter. She will not dwell and drown in it. She will not force herself into suffering. She will survive and move on and live and _lead._

Lexa is an ocean of strength, steady and beautiful and powerful and vast. She is light and graceful, and she is dark—dark and deep and immeasurable. She is cold and destructive, wild but controlled. She harbors lives and loves and secrets. Haunted and haunting, she is polluted with death, but she is invincible. She is eternal and seductive and raw.

Lexa is an ocean of strength, and Clarke feels like only a wave—loose and liquid and crashing.

Clarke braces herself for the backlash, but it never comes, and she feels the cold curl of disappointment leak through her body.

Instead of responding, Lexa slowly shifts up and onto her feet. She says nothing when she walks off into the woods and disappears between the trees.

A spark of panic ignites in Clarke’s chest but she tamps it down to smoke and ash with the hard hammer of denial, telling herself she is glad Lexa is leaving. She tells herself that it is about damned time. She tells herself she hopes Lexa never comes back, but she seethes at the woman’s ability to just walk away without a word.

“Well fine,” she spits, curling further in on herself. She shivers in the rapidly cooling night air. “Just leave then. It’s not like I care.”

She feels like a supreme idiot when Lexa returns a moment later with a small bundle of sticks tucked under her arm and an amused smirk made visible by the moonlight. “The nights are chill, Clarke,” she says simply. “I will make a fire.”

Clarke pushes herself up into a sitting position, and though her overly full stomach aches with the motion, she is thankful that it has settled enough that she no longer feels the urge to vomit. “I can make my own fire,” she bites out, and she hates how petulant it sounds, because Lexa has already accused her of behaving like a child, and here she is, proving her right.

The Commander must think so as well because she steps until she is nearly on top of Clarke and lets the bundle of sticks drop roughly and messily to the ground in front of her. Some bounce up onto Clarke’s lap while others roll away from the heavier part of the bundle, and Lexa hardly spares Clarke a glance as she drones, “Then make one,” and walks stiffly away and back to her tree.

Clarke grabs the bundle and grumbles, “I will.”

“I await the evidence,” Lexa tells her, and Clarke nearly bites through her tongue to keep from snapping back at the brunette.

Instead, she puts her focus toward her task. She collects the sticks that strayed from the rest and then puts the entire bundle to the side. Her body still feels heavy and exhausted, but she ignores the desire to lie back down and sleep and instead pushes up onto her knees and crawls back toward the tree trunk to collect the dry leaves and grass she knows is abundant there. She gathers a small pile and breaks a few wide pieces of bark off the tree and then scoots back toward the waiting bundle of sticks.

Clarke settles her brush pile in front of her and on top of the smooth side of the widest piece of bark she managed to break off, and then she digs through the stick bundle for the longest and skinniest stick she can find.  She presses one end of the stick down into the pile and on top of the bark and takes a deep breath.

Clarke tells herself that this will work, that she is, in no way, about to make a fool of herself in front of Lexa. She refuses to let that happen. She refuses to fail.

She flattens her palms on both sides of the stick and ignores the sting against her blisters as she begins to create friction. She shimmies her hands rapidly down the stick and toward the pile before moving back to the top and starting again. She can feel Lexa’s gaze on her with every move of her hands.

Clarke startles when she hears Lexa suddenly call, “ _Glong oso, Javas_ ,” but she doesn’t falter from her task.

It is only moments before Javas appears between them and settles himself on the ground, and Clarke tries not find the fact that Lexa invited him to sit at the fire (the fire Clarke is _totally_ capable of making) with them endearing. She wants to ask Javas what the hell he has been doing all this time, if he has merely been hanging out three trees away waiting for some kind of command from Lexa, but she keeps her mouth closed and her eyes fixed on the rapidly twisting stick in front of her.

Javas and Lexa both watch Clarke’s actions in silence for what feels like ages, their gazes pricking at Clarke’s nerves and making her sweat, but then Javas breaks the silence. He speaks to Lexa in Trigedasleng, and Clarke tries not to listen in, but she can’t help herself. She hears him say “ _Heda kom skaikru”_ but she can’t make out the rest. It is enough, though, to pique her interest since she knows to whom those words refer.

Javas is talking about her, about Clarke, and Lexa is smiling. It is small and soft, but it is enough to drive Clarke mad.

“ _Sha_ ,” she hears Lexa confirm, and Clarke _really_ wants to know what exactly the Commander is agreeing on.

She tells herself to let it go, though. She tells herself to ignore it. She tells herself to pay attention to what she is doing before she ends up with another gash in her hand like the one she still feels throbbing beneath a piece of her torn shirt.

Clarke glances up just in time to see Javas give Lexa a smirk and mumble something too quiet for Clarke to hear. She sees Lexa’s playful glare, though, and hears the brunette’s light reply of, “ _Shof op, Javas_.”

Clarke lets out a hard, angry huff as she continues to shimmy her hands down the length of the stick. “It’s rude to talk about people behind their backs,” she says bitterly, and both Javas and Lexa look at her.

“We are in front of you,” Lexa replies simply, and Clarke has the urge to break the stick in her hands in half and fling the pieces at the Commander’s face. Instead, she just glares at Lexa until the brunette sighs and casually rolls a shoulder.

“Javas says you are stubborn,” Lexa explains, and then her head dips just slightly, just enough to make Clarke wonder. Clarke starts to say something, but before she can get the words out, Lexa looks back up at her and adds, “Like me.”

Clarke feels her stomach bottom out.

The air grows thick around them and Javas is grinning between the two girls, and Clarke refuses to let herself fall into this twisted feeling of comfort and camaraderie that tries to sneak its way inside and warm her in the absence of the fire she still has yet to make. How can Lexa be so calm and relaxed in the wake of everything that happened? How can she sit across from Clarke and smile and tease? How can she be so completely _normal_ when Clarke so deeply feels the opposite?

Her eyes sting and her chest aches, and Clarke lets out a harsh growl and throws her stick down onto the ground. “Why isn’t this working?” she snaps.

“It was,” Lexa tells her, and Clarke wants to scream until her lungs explode.

“Oh right,” Clarke blurts. “That must be why I’m so warm and toasty right now. This invisible fire is great. I’m _really_ enjoying it. Are you enjoying it, Javas?”

“No,” Javas grunts, and Clarke gives up.

She throws her hands up and twists on her butt to put her back to the other two. She cannot stand to look at either of them, not in this moment when she feels angry enough to rip open the earth. Maybe she could fall in, let herself be swallowed up by the ground and sucked down into the heat so that she can burn and burn and burn.

Just like the Grounders at the drop ship.

Just like the people of Mount Weather.

Clarke startles when she feels a hand settle gently atop her shoulder. She glances up to see Lexa hovering there, and Clarke hates the way she nearly leans into the touch before she jerks her shoulder forward and out from under Lexa’s hand.

Lexa shakes off the rejection and clears her throat. “Your technique is good,” she praises, and Clarke scoffs. “Your patience is lacking.”

The stick she tossed suddenly appears in front of her, and Clarke rolls her eyes before taking it from Lexa’s outstretched hand and turning back toward her small pile of leaves and grass.

Lexa settles in beside her, and Clarke tries not to think about the warmth rolling off of the Commander in waves. She tries not to think of how nice it feels, how much nicer it would feel if she shifted just a bit closer.

“Who taught you to make fire?” Lexa asks.

“One of my teachers on the Ark,” Clarke answers, and she does her best to keep her tone sharp and unfriendly. They are _not_ friends. “We learned what to do but we never got to practice. Fire burns oxygen and we had a limited supply.”

Lexa listens like she is immensely intrigued, hands settled loosely atop her knees and expression stoic but rapt. She nods. “There can be much difference between knowing and doing.”

“Yeah,” Clarke sighs. “I’ve figured that out.”

“Fire takes time,” Lexa explains. “It has to grow from smoke to flame. You were almost to smoke before you stopped.”

Clarke narrows her eyes. “How could you tell?”

Lexa only gives her a small, restrained smile before pointing toward the pile and saying, “Try again.”

Clarke takes in a deep breath and lets it out quietly as she turns up her hands and looks down at her blistered palms. When she notices Lexa glancing over, she quickly closes her hands into fists and readies the stick in the center of the pile again. She has to force herself not to jerk away when Lexa’s fingers press to the top of her forearm.

“I can make this fire,” Lexa says quietly, but Clarke shakes her head and nudges Lexa’s hand away with a twitch of her arm.

“I can do it,” she asserts, and she hates the way her body buzzes when Lexa holds her gaze for several long moments before nodding her acceptance with the hint of a smile on her lips.

When wisps of smoke rise from the pile many long, excruciating minutes’ worth of friction later, Clarke smiles too. Her hands are bloody and her body still aches, but Clarke’s smile doesn’t once falter when Lexa gently blows the smoke into the flame.

They toss the sticks into the newborn flames and watch the colors rise and grow, and for the first time in days, Clarke doesn’t think about death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Glong oso, Javas." - "Join us, Javas."  
> "Heda kom Skaikru" - "Commander of the Sky People"  
> "Sha" - "Yes/Yeah"  
> "Shof op, Javas." - "Shut up, Javas." or "Quiet, Javas."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the kudos and comments. I greatly appreciate them. I hope you all continue to enjoy!

Clarke stirs when the first rays of morning light break through the overhead branches and dance across her eyelids. She yawns and then blinks her eyes slowly open to stare up into the kaleidoscope sky. She breathes in the fresh air of the forest and shivers with chills that spill down her spine as she takes in the colors above her, a wealth of greens and blues, reds and browns. She ignores the chills and lets the sounds of the birds and the nearby creek sing in her ears. It is a soothing moment, a _peaceful_ moment, and Clarke is content to let it embrace her for as long as possible.

When her bladder throbs and reminds her of the entire canteen of water she drank the night before, however, the moment is well and truly shattered.

Clarke rolls onto her side before pushing up into a sitting position, her body unnaturally heavy with the movement. The fire has burned down to embers and still smokes beside her. On the other side of the ash pile, Javas is stretched out on the ground with his back to Clarke. She watches the slow, heavy movements of his back and shoulders and determines by his deep breathing that he must be sleeping.

She could slip away, she thinks. Right now, she could slip away and he wouldn’t even notice; then again, he could probably just track her wherever she went. It isn’t like she is skilled in the art of covering tracks, not to mention the fact that she has no idea where she is going or what she even hopes to find out here in the wild. She has been wandering aimlessly for days.

It is another moment before Clarke realizes what, or rather _who_ , is missing and then she is suddenly, violently _awake_. Her swollen bladder is forgotten as she stiffens, fully alert, and glances rapidly around her. She stares out into the trees, hoping to see a flicker of movement. Her heart races even as she tries to tell herself to calm down, because Lexa has probably just gone to relieve herself or gather food or water. There is likely nothing at all to be concerned about.

Still, Clarke’s stomach burns with dread.

She presses her hand to the gun on her hip to ensure it is still there and pushes up onto her feet. For a moment, she isn’t sure what to do, so she just pivots helplessly in place and stares out into the surrounding forest again.

“Clarke.”

Clarke nearly jumps out of her skin, visibly jolting, and yanks her gun from its holster. She hears a raspy chuckle from above, and Clarke whips her head back to find Lexa nestled in the large branches of the tree Clarke had slept under. A moment later, Lexa’s feet hit the forest floor with a nearly nonexistent thud, her cloak billowing out before landing around her ankles, and then they are standing face to face.

“You are awake,” Lexa observes, and Clarke’s heart still feels like it is trying to pound its way out of her chest.

She presses a hand over her ribs and rubs the spot above the frantic organ as she takes several sharp, fast breaths.

Lexa steps toward her, concern flickering in her eyes. “Are you all right?” she asks, and Clarke shakes her head.

“What the hell, Lexa?” she hisses once she catches her breath. She slips her gun back into its holster. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Why the hell were you in a tree?”

Lexa blinks at her and then, as if the answer is obvious, says, “I was keeping watch.”

Clarke glances up toward the branch Lexa had only just jumped down from and then back to the Commander. “From a tree?”

“It provides a better vantage point,” Lexa explains, “as well as better camouflage and the element of surprise should I need to defend our camp.”

“Right,” Clarke mumbles, taking a deep breath to try to calm her heart. “Right, yeah.”

“I startled you,” Lexa says, and it isn’t an apology. It is more like an observation, and yet the smirk on her lips tells Clarke that Lexa gained more enjoyment than guilt from the experience, so Clarke rolls her eyes.

“Whatever,” she grumbles. “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be? People you need to be barking orders at or betraying or taking turns stabbing?”

Lexa narrows her eyes at Clarke, her smirk slipping away into a thin line. She says nothing, though, and gives only one small shake of her head.

“I thought you were going to Polis,” Clarke says, and Lexa stares at her for a long moment as if she is considering her answer carefully.

“I am,” she finally responds, and Clarke quirks a brow.

“When?”

Lexa purses her lips and clasps her hands behind her back. “When I do,” she replies smoothly, back straight and body tall, and the answer grates at Clarke’s nerves.

“That’s specific,” Clarke grunts, and then waits for Lexa to continue. When the Commander says nothing, Clarke scoffs and decides that she no longer gives a damn about hearing the answer. Lexa can do whatever she wants, and Clarke will do whatever _she_ wants, and that will be that.

Clarke swoops down to collect her spear from the ground before stepping around Lexa and marching off without direction.

“Clarke?” she hears Lexa call from behind her, and as much as Clarke wants to keep walking, she stops. She knows Lexa will only follow her if she doesn’t.

She glances back to the Commander and sees the unvoiced question in Lexa’s eyes. _Where are you going?_

Clarke doesn’t know. She just knows that she wants to get the hell away from Lexa and from Javas and from the gnawing anger that devours her insides nearly every time she and Lexa interact. Or maybe she is more desperate to get away from the affection that somehow still manages to bubble up between her waves of fury and take her by surprise. Clarke doesn’t let herself think on it too long.

She wants to pop off something along the lines of it being none of Lexa’s damned business where she is going, but she knows that that will only make the situation worse.

“I’m going to, um ….” Clarke scratches at the back of her head, and Lexa merely arches a brow in response. Clarke huffs out a breath and feels the throb of her swollen bladder again. She silently praises her body for its perfect timing, because she now has a valid excuse to be alone. “I’ve got to go,” she starts again and then stalls before settling on pressing a hand over her stomach and then pointing toward the bushes.

Lexa follows the motions of Clarke’s hand, and Clarke sees the exact moment that realization sinks in. Lexa’s eyes widen slightly in understanding, and then the Commander nods firmly. Clarke nods in return and starts to walk off, but before she can slip away, Lexa’s voice calls out to her again.

“With your spear?” the Commander asks, and Clarke turns to face her again.

“What?”

Lexa points to the stick that Clarke grips firmly. “You require your spear with you while you relieve yourself?”

Clarke rolls her eyes and drones, “Like _you_ don’t pee with a dagger in _your_ hand.”

Lexa stares at her a moment before a slow smile spreads over her lips. She appears almost to be fighting laughter, and Clarke’s chest feels like it expands a mile. She curses her body for the reaction.

“I do not know this word ‘pee’,” Lexa tells her, “but I believe I understand.”

Clarke bites her tongue to abort the tiny infant of a laugh that threatens to spawn in her throat and forces her face into an impassive expression. She holds Lexa’s gaze only a moment longer before turning on her heel and marching off again.

* * *

It isn’t until Clarke is pulling up her pants after actually relieving herself that she notices their looser fit around her waist and thighs. She has dropped quite a bit of weight in the few days she has spent starving in the forest. She wonders how awful she must look, dirty and exhausted and rapidly thinning, but she pushes the thought out of her mind as quickly as it entered. Sighing, Clarke rolls the waistband of her pants down to tighten the material to her body once more and then she makes her way toward the sound of the creek.

Now that a small measure of her energy has returned, Clarke is determined to provide for herself. It is only a matter of time before Lexa or Javas hunts her down, but if Clarke can prove she is capable of surviving on her own, perhaps she can convince Lexa to go back to _wherever_ and relieve her of the conflict the Commander stirs in Clarke’s chest.

The air nips at the exposed flesh of her hands and face as she walks, and Clarke shivers but simply hunkers her body down a bit and carries on. She stops when she reaches the creek and makes quick work of pulling off her boots and socks before wading out into the water with her spear in hand. She grits her teeth to keep from letting out a loud, hard squeak at the sting of the cold water on her feet and ankles, and then stands still in the middle of the creek to give her body time to adjust to the temperature.

“More than your feet would benefit from a bath, Clarke.”

For the second time that morning, Clarke nearly jumps out of her skin at the sound of Lexa’s voice. She spins around in the water, dizzy and splashing, and sees the Commander at the creek’s edge, watching her.

“I knew you wouldn’t stay away,” Clarke sighs, “and I’m _not_ bathing.”

“Perhaps you should consider it,” Lexa replies and Clarke considers throwing her spear at Lexa instead of at the fish below. It’s not like she can really blame her, though, considering she can smell _herself_ and it isn’t a pleasant experience.

Clarke doesn’t bother with an answer and instead merely rolls her eyes and turns to put her back to Lexa once more. She trains her gaze on the water around her feet and tries not to feel Lexa’s equally intense gaze boring into her back. She wraps both hands tightly around her spear and has to shake away the dizziness that stirs from the pain in her palms. It passes in seconds and then Clarke’s focus is fully on the fish below.

Her first jab down into the water is messy. She loses her footing halfway through, slipping on smooth stones, and splashes up a small wave that scatters the fish away from her. Clarke tries not be embarrassed, knowing she is being watched, but the heat rises in her cheeks regardless and she curses herself for letting Lexa get to her yet again.

Shaking it off, Clarke gets back into position and readies her spear. She stands still and silent until the water calms and the fish approach her again. They weave around her legs and around one another, and Clarke’s eyes follow them in turn, one after the other. She picks one that seems to be moving a bit slower than the others and as soon as her eyes lock onto the target, she strikes.

Her spear splits the water, smooth and fast, and she feels the bump of the fish’s body against the stick but she doesn’t manage to pierce the damned thing. Clarke lets out a hard sigh when she pulls the stick from the water, clean, and tries not to let herself erupt in anger. Three days now of trying to spear a fish with no success, though, is a frustratingly jagged pill to swallow.

Clarke cracks her neck and readies herself again. Her body is tense and rigid as she stares down into the water, spear gripped tightly in both hands. She can do this. She _will_ do this.

Her breath slams roughly from her lungs when a hand suddenly presses gently to her upper arm and then slithers down to rest over one of her own hands. When Clarke jerks almost violently in response, Lexa’s chest presses to her back and another hand tightens around her side to hold her in place. Clarke hadn’t even heard the other girl enter the water.

“Shh,” Lexa breathes, and a wave of tingles rolls down Clarke’s spine at the feel of warm breath on the back of her ear and neck. “Be still.”

Clarke stills on command, but her heart is suddenly racing. “What are you—”

“Quiet,” Lexa whispers, and Clarke’s body responds without thought. Her lips close tightly, and Lexa presses more firmly against her back. Clarke closes her eyes at the feel of her—the warmth, the contact. It feels like a lifetime has passed since she was last pressed against another person this way.

“You are tense,” Lexa says, and the words hardly have voice at all. Her hands come up to press gently atop Clarke’s shoulders. “Release.”

Clarke lets out a soft sigh and releases the tension in her shoulders and back. It causes her to sink deeper against Lexa’s chest, and she nearly bites through her tongue when her throat bubbles with a moan that she forces herself not to let free.

“Spread your legs,” Lexa whispers and Clarke nearly passes out.

She jerks her head to look at the girl behind her, and the words seem to sink in for Lexa as well when their eyes lock. The Commander’s cheeks tint a lovely shade of pink before Lexa clears her throat and weakly rasps, “Widen your stance.”

Clarke’s gaze darts down to Lexa’s lips, far too close, and suddenly the air feels like it is on fire. She blinks rapidly, swallows, and nods before turning away from Lexa’s flushed cheeks and back toward the water. Clarke takes a deep breath and then slowly shifts her feet to spread her legs a little farther apart, only an inch or two. “Like that?” she asks.

“Yes,” Lexa replies, and Clarke swears she feels the slightest tremor in the brunette’s hand when it slips back over Clarke’s atop the spear. “Spread your hands as well. They are too close.”

When Clarke does so, Lexa nods. Her chin rubs against the top of Clarke’s shoulder with the motion, and Clarke has the urge to lean into the touch. She tries to hate her body for the reaction, but in this moment, she can’t quite bring herself to care.

Right now, Lexa isn’t a monster or an enemy or an ex-ally or an almost-anything. She is a teacher, an instructor. She is steady. She is wise. She is warm, _so_ incredibly warm.

“You lack patience,” Lexa tells her, snapping Clarke back to reality, “as you did with the fire.”

“Well—”

“Shh.” Lexa hushes her again, and Clarke bites her bottom lip and huffs out a sigh through her nose.

“There can be no emotion,” Lexa whispers. “No anger. No excitement. There can be only focus, patience, _calm_. Be fluid as the water and wait for the fish to come to you.”

Clarke looks down into the water, but the first thing she notices isn’t the fish. It is Lexa’s feet. They are bare and small and settled just between Clarke’s own. Something about the sight makes her chest ache.

“Wait,” Lexa breathes, and Clarke forces her attention back to the fish.

She watches them flit around in front of her feet and quickly trains her eyes on one of the larger ones. Her body must tense at the decision because she feels Lexa’s hands press to both sides of her waist, and the brunette again whispers, “Wait.”

Clarke’s entire body feels like it is vibrating and she is surprised not to see resulting tremors in the water below. It is calm as ever, and Clarke wishes her heart would take note.

“When you are ready,” Lexa murmurs, “breathe deep and then strike.”

Clarke does as she is told. She holds her focus on the large fish and then takes a deep breath. On the exhale, she slams her spear down hard and fast. She feels the stick bump against the fish again, but the point comes up clean.

“Damn it,” she sighs.

“No emotion,” Lexa reminds her, and Clarke rolls her eyes.

“Why am I not surprised that _that’s_ your advice?” she grumbles.

Lexa doesn’t reply to the question but simply places her hand on Clarke’s again. She taps her index finger against the back of Clarke’s hand and says, “The spear must not be separate.”

Clarke’s brow furrows. “What?”

“When you strike, you move only the spear,” Lexa tells her. “You must move your entire body. The spear must not be separate from you. Let it be part of you. When you strike, move your body with the spear.”

Clarke’s stomach flips pleasantly at the serene expression on Lexa’s face as she gives instruction. The Commander is in her element, graceful and fluid and learned. She is calm and natural and completely at ease, and as always, she is beautiful.

Swallowing thickly, Clarke turns her gaze back to the water and nods. When the fish dart in around them again, she readies herself. She keeps her body calm and relaxed despite Lexa’s warmth pressing into her back and making parts of her tingle, and trains her eyes on a singular fish.

“Patience,” Lexa whispers at Clarke’s ear. “There is no rush. When you are ready, you will know.”

Clarke watches her chosen fish weave circles in front of her for what feels like hours, long enough that her toes go entirely numb, and Lexa never says a word. She is only a steady press of support at Clarke’s back, hands firm atop Clarke’s hipbones.

Drawing in a long deep breath, Clarke prepares herself for the strike, and on the exhale, she twists her whole body with her jab. She is fluid and swift and more graceful than she can ever recall being, and when the spear goes into the water, she _feels_ it. It thuds against a hard body and then presses through, pinning the fish to the creek bottom.

Clarke shrieks her excitement before she can stop herself and yanks the spear out of the water, a silver-backed fish twitching on its point. She spins around, eyes wide with excitement, and practically thrusts the thing at the Commander.

Lexa lets out the smallest rasp of a laugh, and her eyes are full and proud when Clarke locks onto them. “You did well,” she praises.

Clarke feels the heat in her cheeks and along her neck when she nods and looks again to the fish at the end of her spear. “I did,” she whispers, and she is surprised by how tight her throat grows in that moment. Her eyes prick with tears and her chest swells to the point of bursting. “I did.”

She stares until the fish stops twitching.

“Clarke,” Lexa says, pulling Clarke’s focus back to her.

When Clarke looks to Lexa again, she sees the curiosity in green eyes, but no questions are asked. Lexa, instead, motions toward the bank and Clarke nods and follows her. They walk through the water in silence and back onto the ground.

The high of adrenaline passes as Clarke is re-donning her socks and boots and when she stands, a wave of dizziness rocks through her. She stumbles on her feet and feels Lexa’s hand wrap tightly around her arm to steady her.

“Clarke?” Lexa questions, but Clarke only shakes her head.

The dizziness passes a moment later, and Clarke swallows down the bile that had risen in her throat. “I’m fine,” she says. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Lexa watches her for a long moment before nodding her agreement and leading Clarke back through the trees.  


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the support, everyone! This is a special chapter for me, and I wrote it to a soundtrack of "From the Valley to the Stars" by El Perro del Mar. It might make for a lovely reading companion. Enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

When they reach camp, marked by the small ash pile of the fire Clarke had started the night before, Javas is just returning as well. He drops the limp fox hanging over his shoulder onto the ground before turning to look at them. A smile touches his lips when he points at the spear in Clarke’s hand and says, “A fish finally fell from the sky.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and fights a smile. “Very funny,” she drawls and then glances to Lexa who is staring curiously between them.

Javas chuckles, a gruff grunt of a laugh, and says, “You learned patience.”

Sighing, Clarke drops down onto a large rock and lets the tension fall from her back. She feels exhausted and heavy, and her body aches. “Lexa taught me,” she grumbles, and the words are quiet but neither Lexa nor Javas misses them.

Lexa smirks proudly until Javas lets out another laugh.

“ _Heda_ lacked patience once too,” he says, and Lexa shoots him a cutting glare.

Clarke is surprised when Javas seems entirely unfazed by the glare. It makes her wonder about his relationship with Lexa, how long they have known one another. Has he known Lexa since she was a child, since before she was the Commander? There is obviously trust there and an ease that Clarke hasn’t seen Lexa have around anyone else outside of herself and maybe Gustus.

Javas steps over to Clarke and squats in front of her. He looks over the fish at the end of her spear and nods. “Your first fish is bigger than _Heda’s_.”

“Really?” Clarke asks, and when she glances to Lexa, the Commander’s jaw is clenched tight and her eyes are tossed to the side as if they got stuck somewhere mid eye-roll.

“Mm,” Javas hums with a nod. He then holds up his two index fingers with only a couple inches of space between them to indicate the size of the first fish Lexa ever speared. Clarke can’t help the small smile that pulls at her lips when she sees how tiny the fish was, and it only grows when Javas lets out a loud boom of a laugh.

“ _Shof op, Javas_ ,” Lexa huffs, and Javas stands and makes his way over to her. He only laughs harder when he passes by Lexa and holds up his fingers to indicate the size of the tiny fish again and Lexa responds by standing on her tiptoes to smack him on the back of the head.

Clarke watches the interaction with her heart in her throat. Lexa seems so human in this moment, light and playful and entirely separate from the bloody and dirt-streaked woman who stood as a statue before her and severed their alliance. It is unsettling and endearing, and Clarke is reminded of something Bellamy said to her what now feels like ages ago.

_Who we are and who we need to be to survive are very different things._

Clarke takes a breath and decides to just let herself live in those words for a moment. She knows it won’t last. The anger that has taken up residence in her veins and the guilt that has embedded itself in her flesh are still alive and well. For now, though, they are dormant beneath the swell of unexpected joy Javas’s teasing has evoked.

“How old was she?” Clarke asks before she can stop herself, and though her question was directed to Javas, it is Lexa who answers.

“Nine years,” Lexa tells her, her expression still riddled with a hint of embarrassment and bruised ego that Clarke finds herself wishing would spill through more often.

Clarke shakes her head. “Well there go my bragging rights,” she says. “It’s not really a victory if you speared your first fish at _nine_ , no matter how small it was, when I didn’t get mine ‘til eighteen.”

Lexa’s pursed lips slowly stretch into a tender smile. “Clarke,” she says, “you did not _see_ your first fish until eighteen.”

“It is a victory,” Javas assures her, and Clarke can’t help her smile. He then beckons her with his hand and says, “Now, come and learn to clean it.”

Clarke jumps off the rock and nearly falls when a fresh wave of dizziness spills through her head and racks her body. The spear in her hand tumbles to the ground as she stumbles. Her stomach lurches and her heart races and her hand _throbs_ , and Clarke can’t think about anything else.

Lexa is at her side in an instant, hand wrapping firmly around Clarke’s wrist. When Clarke looks up at her, her vision blurs and Lexa’s concerned expression goes hazy in front of her eyes. She falls back onto the rock and braces herself, waiting for the dizziness to pass. She flinches when Lexa’s fingers graze across her forehead and they are cold to the touch.

“Clarke,” Lexa breathes, “you are too warm.”

Clarke’s words suddenly feel too thick for her tongue when she mumbles, “You’re cold.”

“You have a fever,” Lexa tells her, and Clarke shakes her head.

“I’m fine,” she insists and pushes Lexa’s hand away from her face. “Just tired.”

When Clarke pushes back up onto her feet, the last thing she sees is Lexa’s widening eyes before everything warps around her and then goes black.

* * *

Clarke comes to with a gasp when a burst of cold water splashes over her face. She jolts in place and feels arms grip tightly around her, and when she blinks through the haze of water lingering on her lashes, she sees Javas’s face hovering over her.

He holds her tightly in his arms, one braced under her head and the other wrapped over the top of her, reaching for the cool water of the creek they have returned to. He quiets her with a hushing sound and spills the water over her forehead, more gently now that she is awake.

“What?” she asks, and the word shudders its way through her lips as a cold chill rips down her back. “What’s going on?”

“You have a fever.”

Clarke’s head jerks to the side at the voice, chin pushing against Javas’s bicep as she strains to see behind him. Lexa is bent over a flap of cloth on the ground, rummaging through hidden contents inside it.

“It is high,” the Commander says, and her voice is cold but unmistakably trembling. “You needed to be cooled.”

Clarke’s stomach flips and then sinks. She squeezes her hand closed in a tight fist and nearly passes out again at the hard throb that rips through her palm and vibrates up her forearm. She pushes gently against Javas’s chest with her body and is surprised when he lets her roll away from him. She lands in the creek in a freezing splash and gasps sharply before rolling over and sitting up in the water.

Her entire body shakes almost violently with the cold ripping through her body but Clarke doesn’t leave the water. She knows that no matter how frozen she feels, her body is overheated. She needs to stay put.

Clarke pulls her hand up and looks at the dirty and now soggy strip of shirt still tied tightly around it. She takes a deep breath and then pulls the cloth carefully off her hand, hissing as it causes a fresh jolt of pain. A lump rises in her throat when she looks down to see the cut between her thumb and index finger, swollen and pulsing. It is an angry red that glares brightly in the sunlight.

“It’s my hand,” she says as she stares at the cut, and a moment later, Lexa is kneeling in the water next to her and reaching for the appendage.

Lexa stares at the cut on Clarke’s hand for a long moment before barking something at Javas in Trigedasleng. Clarke doesn’t understand the words but she can tell by the tone decorating them that whatever Lexa said was an order. It is confirmed a second later when Javas stands without question and takes off into the forest.

“Where’s he g-going?” Clarke stutters, her teeth beginning to chatter.

“To collect an herb to make a salve,” Lexa answers, harsh and short. Her eyes cut up to Clarke’s in a hard glare, and Clarke swallows thickly. Lexa shakes her head and looks back down at Clarke’s hand. “This was foolish, Clarke.”

Clarke bristles at the words. “You th-think I _wanted_ an infection?”

“Yes,” Lexa growls before pushing up out of the creek and walking back over to the small set of supplies on the creek bank. She grabs a water canteen and a small cloth and returns. She reaches for Clarke’s hand again, not at all gentle, and pours the already sterile water from the canteen over Clarke’s infected cut and begins to scrub away the layer of yellow crust at its seam.

Clarke hisses at the pain. She jerks her hand but Lexa holds tightly to it and continues cleaning the wound.

“You are a healer,” Lexa says, and her eyes are glossed and ripe with fury when she glances up at Clarke. “You know to keep your wounds clean yet you let this fester in your filth for days.”

Clarke feels the words like needles each stabbing into a different part of her body, and she knows Lexa is right. Her chest aches. Her throat bubbles with guilt.

“You have not bathed,” Lexa continues through gritted teeth. “Your attempts to care for yourself have been weak and meager. You make yourself suffer.”

“Lexa,” Clarke tries and her voice trembles. She hates the way it trembles.

“You _cannot_ change the past, Clarke,” Lexa bites out, eyes alive and wild as she looks up at Clarke and grips her hand to the point of pain, and something inside Clarke just snaps.

“I killed them all!” she shouts before she can stop herself, twisting violently away from the Commander.

Silence engulfs them rapidly, and the air becomes so hot and thick between them that Clarke feels like she might suffocate inside it. She gasps for air as her body trembles and Lexa looks at her, wide-eyed and frozen.

“Everyone in the mountain,” Clarke croaks around a harsh sob as she falls back in the water, one elbow digging into the creek bed. She shakes with every word she says. “Children and f-friends and people who helped us. I, I pulled a lever and ….”

Lexa moves closer, the water rippling around her, and Clarke looks up at her with all the guilt of her soul flooding her gaze. “And I hate you,” she whispers, “because I can’t stop wondering if, if you st-stayed ….” She stops and sucks in another sharp, staggered breath before letting it out in a wet sigh. “If I wouldn’t have had to p-pull it at all.”

Lexa’s eyes are pained and _knowing_ and Clarke can’t look at them.

She feels broken and beaten and weary beyond measure as she collapses off her elbow and lets herself float back on the water. She is too tired to hold herself up any longer. She is too tired to care if she drowns in the shallow creek. She is too tired and too ashamed, and right now she feels too much like nothing, _nothing_ , will ever be able to change that.

Lexa says nothing and Clarke closes her eyes to block out the sun. She blocks out the sounds around her. She barely registers the hand slipping under the back of her head as her body grows heavy with sleep and the rest of the world drops away from her.

* * *

When Clarke wakes again, it is night. She blinks her eyes open and stares up at the moonlight filtering through the trees. She lets the sight soothe her for several long moments before pushing up onto her elbows and glancing to her right. Javas sits with his back to a tree on the other side of a small fire, his gaze trained on the shadows of the forest. He is keeping watch.

Clarke looks down at her hand and sees it has been freshly bandaged, a thick paste visible at the edges of the bandage, oozing out from underneath. The throb in her wound has lessened significantly and Clarke sighs with the relief.

She glances to her left then and sees Lexa laid out on the ground, only a few feet from Clarke’s side. Her heart aches at the sight, Lexa’s knees curled up toward her chest and her face relaxed in sleep. Clarke burns with the image of Lexa’s pained eyes when she had once again told the Commander she hated her.

Clarke sits up more fully and Javas glances over to her. He nods in acknowledgement and then points toward the ground near Clarke’s side. She looks down to see a water canteen and a large leaf wrapped up in a bundle. She takes a long drink from the canteen before quietly opening the leaf bundle to find a few pieces of meat, some berries, and a sprig of a plant that looks familiar to Clarke but that she can’t place just by looking.

She looks back up to see Javas watching her, and she nods her thanks before taking a bite of the meat. She eats through one piece and a few berries before reaching for the leafy sprig. She pulls it up to her nose and sniffs, and she is surprised by the fresh scent that spills into her nostrils.

It is a mint plant.

Clarke almost laughs before she pushes a few of the leaves from the sprig into her mouth and chews them. Her mouth fills with the fresh scent and flavor of mint, and she feels cleaner in seconds.

She stays there, staring into the fire, for a long while after she finishes eating but then Clarke pushes slowly up onto her feet. Her body still feels tired and weak but she can’t sit still. She needs to move, needs some time to clear her head.

She says nothing to Javas when she walks by him and he doesn’t try to stop her. She knows it is only because he can track her, and he doesn’t have to be holding her hand to keep her safe. Perhaps, too, he can sense that she just needs a moment to breathe.

Clarke wanders through the wood for what feels like ages before her eyes land on the gleaming glow of plants ahead in the distance. Her heart fills with the sight as rapidly as her eyes do, and she makes her way quickly toward the glow.

The ground is springy and soft beneath her feet as Clarke steps into a small clearing. Glowing moss paints the trunks of towering trees, blue and radiant. The periwinkle gleam of petals shines out from flowers grown up through the cracks riddling moss-covered boulders partially devoured by ancient ground. Clarke is washed in their luminescence.

She closes her eyes as her fingers dust over the velvet slide of a large petal, and she releases the breath that has been stinging in her chest since her first step into the glow. The air pushes out of her lungs, dances its way through her lips, and Clarke feels her entire body relax. Images flash through her mind, a reel of memories, and for only a moment Clarke is back at the beginning.

The ground is new and vibrant, pulsing with energy and life and mystery. Her heart is racing and expanding with every new sight and experience. The air is clean and ripe unlike the stale air of the Ark, and the breeze caresses her flesh more gently than she had ever imagined it could. Miles of green stretch out in every direction, and the earth has a melody that never seems to fall silent. There is always music in the wind, in the water, in the creatures, and in the ground. It vibrates in her ears and beneath her feet, and for the first time in her life, she understands what it means to be eternal.

Everything is beautiful and terrifying and wide open, and Clarke is smaller than she has ever been. Her name is her only name and she bears no title, and there isn’t a drop of blood on her hands.

When Clarke opens her eyes again, the forest’s glow is as bright as ever. The dark spots inside her cannot dim its brilliance, cannot mar its beauty. All that she has done and all that she has become disappears inside the glow, and Clarke breathes deep and clean for the first time in what feels like ages.

She knows Lexa is there before she even turns around, and a part of her wonders at the stirring inside that always seems to alert her to the Commander’s presence. Part of her would rather not think on it at all.

“The first time I saw glowing plants like these, I was with Finn,” Clarke murmurs, letting out a soft sigh that barely rustles the petals of the flower in front of her. She isn’t sure why she says it or what she even expects to hear in response, but her heart throbs at the memory and at the name.

Long moments of silence stretch out around her, and Clarke wonders if maybe she was wrong. Maybe Lexa never came. Maybe she is alone, speaking to herself and to the trees.

But then ….

“I was with my mother.”

Clarke closes her eyes and breathes deep. She doesn’t have to ask. She can tell by the wistful lilt of Lexa’s voice that, like Finn, her mother is someone who lives now only in memory. Clarke’s chest aches with the knowledge, and she wonders how many losses Lexa has endured, how many goodbyes she was forced to utter before she stopped holding hope in every hello.

“ _Keryon gon trimani_ ,” Lexa says, and suddenly she is close. Her words are a warm breeze at the back of Clarke’s neck, and when Clarke turns to face her, only scant few inches exist between them. Lexa’s eyes are bright in the effulgence, and her lips part almost reverently when her gaze dances over Clarke’s illuminated face. Her next words leave her in the rasp of a whisper. “Souls of the forest.”

“Did your mother tell you that?”

“Many years ago,” Lexa tells her, nodding slowly. Her gaze roams over Clarke’s face as if she is trying to commit every inch of it, washed in the glow, to memory. “It is a belief of my people. Our young make wishes on the souls, and the forest grants good fortune.”

Clarke’s heart squeezes almost painfully at the image that bursts into her mind of a young Lexa, all bright eyes and wild braids and more hair than body, staring wide-eyed at the glowing plants for the first time in her young life and whispering wishes under her breath. It makes Clarke want to step closer. It makes her want to forget everything they have become and everything they have done and just _be_ here with Lexa, just two young girls with no burdens and no pain and only glowing forest and each other.

She swallows down the lump that rises in her throat at the thought and asks, “What did you wish for?”

Lexa’s eyes grow distant for only a moment before she shakes her head, just slightly, lets out a staggered breath and whispers, “Greatness.”

Clarke is overwhelmed by the weight of that one word, the way she can physically _see_ it enveloping Lexa, weighing down atop her with every breath. She steps forward without thought and her uninjured hand finds Lexa’s, loose and dangling, at her side. Their fingers tap together timidly before weaving into a knot and Clarke understands when Lexa closes her eyes and breathes deeper.

“So maybe the wishes do come true,” Clarke murmurs, and part of her thinks that maybe that isn’t always a good thing.

Lexa nods, her eyes still closed, and whispers, “Maybe they do.”

They stand there in silence, fingers tangled, for long moments that seem to stretch on forever until Lexa opens her eyes again and asks, “What is your wish, Clarke?”

Clarke feels the words tug at her heart and then at the corner of her lips. “I’m not a kid anymore,” she says, and Lexa shakes her head.

“We can pretend,” Lexa tells her, and Clarke thinks she has never seen Lexa more open and vulnerable, soft and _alive_ and beautiful. It is the most incredible metamorphosis, and part of Clarke is grateful that she is the only one who gets to witness it. Part of her wishes she wasn’t, because it only makes it harder to hate Lexa. Part of her wonders why she has to hate Lexa at all.

Lexa squeezes Clarke’s hand and murmurs, “Close your eyes.”

Clarke does and feels Lexa squeeze her hand again.

“We are children,” Lexa tells her. “We are small and the forest is bright.”

Clarke’s chest feels like it might concave at the sound of Lexa’s voice, the longing in her tone and in her words, and the way it all combines to make Clarke feel more alive and wanting than she can ever remember being.

Lexa’s thumb swipes across the back of Clarke’s hand. “What is your wish, Clarke?” she asks.

Licking her lips, Clarke draws in a cool, clean breath and lets it out in a slow sigh. “I,” she starts and then stops. Lexa squeezes her hand again and the wish surges up through Clarke’s lips. “I want to be weightless,” she says. “I want … I want to be free.”

She takes a deep breath and tears prick at her eyes when she lets it out to feel all the weight slip from her shoulders as if speaking the wish aloud has allowed her, in this one moment, to truly let go of all that she has been carrying around inside her. A whimper of a sob escapes her, bubbles up and somehow sounds more like a laugh than anything else, and Clarke feels young and clean for the first time in too long.

Clarke smiles with her eyes closed and then asks, “What’s yours?” She squeezes Lexa’s fingers. “What do you want to be?”

Lexa is quiet a long time, and Clarke opens her eyes to look at her. Her breath catches in her throat at the sight. Lexa’s eyes are wide and wet and almost turquoise in the glowing halo that dances around them, and for once, they are not haunted. They are full and bright and yearning, and Lexa is more honest than perhaps she has ever been when she licks her lips and whispers, “Yours.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the continued support. I greatly appreciate your kudos and comments! If anyone is interested, I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "Petrichor" by Keaton Henson (feat. Ren Ford). It might make for a lovely reading companion. I hope you enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

Clarke’s breath ignites in her throat and burns in the dry hollow where words should reside but don’t. There _are_ no words. Clarke is stunned silent in the wake of a single syllable, because she knows, she _knows_ ,that not even with war paint smeared crimson and swords drawn from sheathes and forced through flesh has Lexa ever been as courageous as she is in this moment—bare-faced and bared soul. Clarke is seared with the brand of that knowledge. She is breathless with it.

Lexa’s eyes somehow widen further when that single word, _yours_ , slips free, as if part of her wishes she could suck it right out of the air and back through her lips, back into silence. Clarke watches as the brunette’s tongue flicks out over her chapped bottom lip like this quiet moment of bravery has sapped her dry and she can’t decide if she wants to propel it further forward or bury it back inside her chest. She lets it hang, though, because that’s all she _can_ do, and Clarke feels like the world has suddenly shrunken down around them and left nothing free but their tangled fingers and their trembling lips and their wet, wild eyes frozen open on one another.

She marvels at Lexa’s ability to communicate so much with only a word. She aches for that ability. She aches to reciprocate, but she doesn’t know how.

She doesn’t know how to tell Lexa about the war beneath her flesh and between her bones, the conflict that has eaten up her insides like a cancer. She doesn’t know how to stand steady on quaking ground, or how to hold her head up when there are bodies on her back and souls strung around her neck.

She doesn’t know how to explain that there are moments when she holds Lexa between her ribs and there are moments when she holds her between her teeth. There are moments she wants to cut herself open and pull Lexa deep inside, and there are moments when she wants to cut _Lexa_ open instead and carve her name into the Commander’s bones. She wants to hear all the ways that it hurts and _hurts_ like it will never stop hurting.

There are parts of her that want to slip along the slopes of Lexa’s body and mute out the rest of the world with thighs clamped roughly around her ears, but then there are parts of her that would rather wrap around Lexa’s slender throat and squeeze until supple lips turn blue. There are parts of her that want to cry on Lexa’s shoulder and against her chest and take comfort in knowing that she is not the only monster beneath the moon, and there are parts of her that want to rip her burdens off and press them into Lexa’s back instead, make her feel all the deaths on Clarke’s fingertips that neither of them will ever be able to know with certainty were truly necessary.

She doesn’t know how to admit that no matter how many times she says she hates Lexa, no part of her has ever or _can_ ever believe it. She doesn’t know how to explain that she wishes she _could_ believe it. She wishes she could have only her anger and abandon her affection, but they both have their hooks embedded in her skin.

How can she communicate that she understands Lexa’s choice and that she doesn’t, that she _may_ come to accept it and that she may never be able to?

She doesn’t know how to let go of it all when she feels like her anger and her guilt are the only things holding her to the ground now.

She doesn’t know how to be simple anymore.

She can’t be the Clarke with fire in her eyes and desire on her lips, the one with solid plans and faith in her emotions, not anymore. She can’t be the Clarke who Lexa kissed in the quiet of her tent, who wasn’t ready but who _wanted_ to be, who _would_ have been with a little time and a lot of loyalty. She can’t be that Clarke anymore.

 _That_ Clarke had death on her hands but not yet in her heart and not yet in her veins.

 _This_ Clarke bleeds black. There are ghosts inside her chest.

Lexa’s fingers squeeze between hers and pull her back to the moment, and Clarke sucks in a breath that rattles between her teeth and pulls tears from her eyes when it rolls back out.

“I ….” Clarke tries but Lexa shakes her head and steps in closer.

Their hands untangle and gentle fingers swipe at the wet tracks on Clarke’s cheeks. She allows it because she is helpless not to. She is helpless and tired and overwhelmed, and Lexa is brave and glowing, and she is broken too.

Lexa’s voice is steady when she whispers, “I know.”

New tears tumble free as Clarke presses into Lexa’s touch. “I can’t,” she croaks, and Lexa sighs.

“I know,” the Commander breathes again.

Clarke lifts her hands to wrap them around Lexa’s wrists and holds them there. She closes her eyes and revels in the warmth of Lexa’s palms around her cheeks, and she understands the gravity of what Lexa is telling her.

_I know._

Clarke feels some measure of relief in that truth. She doesn’t know how to say all the things inside but she doesn’t have to, because Lexa knows without ever having to hear a word.

When Clarke opens her eyes again, Lexa is looking at her with the weight of worlds in her gaze, the same weight Clarke feels pressing on her lungs. They stare at one another only seconds before Lexa’s gaze flickers away, and Clarke sighs as she watches the familiar mask slip back into place and all the secrets in Lexa’s eyes fade back to obstinate green. Clarke accepts it, though, and only nods when Lexa slowly pulls her hands away from Clarke’s face and says, “You need more rest. You still have a fever.”

Lexa turns to lead the way back to their small camp with its blazing fire and Javas, but Clarke stops her with a tug of her elbow. When the Commander turns, Clarke makes a show of looking around at the still-glowing plants and shrugs her shoulders, hoping that by some miracle, Lexa will simply understand.

She does.

“We can stay,” Lexa says and then backs up against a tree and watches as Clarke moves to the middle of the small clearing.

Clarke drops to the ground in silence and stretches out on the mossy earth. She breathes easier as she stares up into the star-studded sky, but she can feel Lexa’s eyes on her and it makes her skin crawl. “Lexa,” she huffs, “lay down.”

“I should keep watch,” Lexa says stiffly.

“Please?” Clarke whispers, never taking her gaze from the stars.

She is surprised when Lexa complies moments later and lowers to the ground on Clarke’s right. They lay side by side, not touching, just sharing space, and Clarke can feel the heat of Lexa’s body, only inches away. The night is chill but she doesn’t scoot closer. She knows Lexa won’t either.

“Where were you before you came here?” Clarke asks after several gaping moments of silence, her fingers twisting in the mossy earth between their bodies. “Before you came here to help me, I mean. You had to have been close considering how fast you got here.”

“Close, yes,” Lexa tells her. “We have made a relief camp an hour’s ride from here, several on foot. TonDC must be rebuilt, and my people freed from the mountain were too weak to travel any farther. They require time to regain their strength. Indra operates as their lead in my stead.”

Clarke’s jaw clenches at the mention of the Grounders freed from the mountain, the conditions of their release spilling into her mind, but she forces her anger out and away in a long, breathy sigh. “Oh.”

She glances at Lexa from the corner of her eye and sees the hard but graceful line of her jaw as the Commander stares up into the sky. She wonders what Lexa is thinking in that moment but she never asks. She thinks maybe it is better that she doesn’t.

The word _‘yours’_ is still ringing in her ears.

“Don’t you need to go back?” Clarke asks, and Lexa’s head turns without warning and Clarke is ensnared in the Commander’s gaze before she can even think about avoiding it.

Lexa’s stare is penetrating, and she asks, “Do you wish me to leave?”

Clarke wishes the ground would open up and swallow her. She doesn’t answer because her pride can’t bear the truth swimming around in her throat.

Lexa doesn’t seem to need it anyway. She turns her head back to look up at the sky again and lets out a gentle sigh. “The war is over,” she says. “I have more freedom to do as I choose during times of peace, though I still do as I must. I needed to be with my people, so I was. I wanted to be here, so I am. I need to be in Polis, so I will go there as well.”

Clarke tries not to think about the difference in the individual statements, and how amidst a pool of obligations, being _here_ with _her_ is something Lexa _wants_. She tries not to think about it, tries not to let it worm its way inside and press like a kiss against her ribs. She tries, but she fails.

“Why?” Clarke asks, forcing her focus away from the thought.

Lexa tilts her head to the side again. “Why what?”

“Why do you need to be in Polis?” Clarke clarifies.

“There is much to discuss with the council of the clans,” Lexa tells her freely. “Much has changed.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and Clarke doesn’t need her to. Much has changed now that the people of the mountain are dead, dead thanks to Clarke.

Clarke lets out a long sigh that sounds like it has wrenched its way up from her soul, and she elects to change the subject. She isn’t ready to talk about this, not with Lexa, not with anyone. She doesn’t know if she will ever be ready to talk about it.

Clarke rolls onto her side and props herself up on her elbow, her face resting in her palm. She watches Lexa a long time, the Commander lying stiffly on her back with her hands clasped over her stomach and her gaze trained on the sky. She thinks of how loose and at ease Lexa had been earlier at the campfire, and then Clarke is whispering a question before she realizes it. “Can I ask you something?”

“You have asked me many things,” Lexa replies smoothly. “Now you seek permission?”

Clarke rolls her eyes but the tiniest hint of a smile tugs at her lips. “It might be personal.”

Lexa is silent for several long seconds before simply tilting her chin down in one gentle nod.

“What’s the deal with you and Javas?” Clarke asks her. “You’re different with him than I’ve ever seen you be with the others. He’s obviously known you a long time if he knows how big the first fish you ever speared was.”

Lexa nods once again, face still turned toward the sky, and says, “All my life.”

“Was he a mentor of some kind?”

Lexa doesn’t nod or shake her head. She doesn’t confirm or deny. She doesn’t move or make a sound and instead only continues to stare up at the sky.

Sighing, Clarke rolls onto her back again. “Sorry,” she mutters.

“Javas is my mother’s brother,” Lexa says when the silence creeps in again, and Clarke’s eyes widen as she turns to look at the Commander once more. This time, Lexa is looking back at her, head turned toward her atop the mossy ground.

“He’s your uncle?” Clarke whispers, surprised.

Lexa blinks once, slow and deliberate, in lieu of a nod or verbal response.

“I guess that explains why you seem so familiar with each other,” Clarke murmurs.

“He and my mother were close,” Lexa says, licking her lips and letting out a long, nearly silent breath. “He and I were as well.”

“Seems like you still are,” Clarke whispers, scooting a half-inch closer without thought.

Lexa gives her the same slow blink from before, and Clarke takes it as confirmation. “We are familiar when others are not around,” the Commander says, and Clarke isn’t surprised by that in the slightest. “Only then do I allow his teasing.”

“But you weren’t alone then,” Clarke argues. “I was there when he was teasing you and you didn’t stop him.”

Lexa’s eyes narrow only slightly. “You are different,” she says after a moment.

“Different how?” Clarke asks. “You don’t care what I think of you?”

Lexa turns fully onto her side then, facing Clarke, and her next words are so quiet that Clarke doesn’t catch them. She scoots even closer, so that they are but a breath or two apart, and whispers, “What?”

Lexa huffs out a breath through her nose and casts her eyes upward as if whatever it was she said and is about to repeat is pure torture to push through her lips. When her gaze shifts back to Clarke, she says, “You have already seen me vulnerable.”

“Oh,” Clarke breathes and then nods atop her hand that is tucked under the side of her face. “Yeah.”

At the verbal confirmation, Lexa casts her eyes upward again and Clarke nearly lets a laugh slip through.

“The world isn’t going to end because you like me, Lexa,” she says, and Lexa pins her with a glare.

“You have no proof of this, Clarke,” the Commander says evenly, and Clarke sees the smile pushing at Lexa’s lips. She feels it echoing across her own.

“Proof of what?” Clarke questions. “Proof that the world won’t end or proof that you like me?”

Lexa smirks. “Either.”

“I think the moment we had earlier proves that you like me,” Clarke argues.

Lexa’s brows furrow and her lips purse exaggeratedly. “I do not recall this moment you speak of, Clarke,” she says, and there isn’t a hint of amusement to her tone which, to Clarke, makes it all the funnier. “You must have imagined it. You _do_ have a fever.”

When a small laugh escapes her, Clarke revels in it. She revels in the feeling of the laughter bubbling up from her belly and spilling through her lips and making soft music on the night air. She revels in the joy of it for only a moment and then reality seeps in. The sound of her laughter chokes and dies in her throat, and Clarke’s smile falters and then falls.

Lexa’s follows, and Clarke sees clear understanding in the Commander’s eyes when Lexa says, “It _is_ okay to have moments of relief, Clarke.” Her fingers dust over Clarke’s forearm for only a moment before retracting. “It does not mean you care any less about the lost.”

Clarke closes her eyes and swallows thickly. She wants to believe Lexa, and part of her knows that Lexa is right. Most of her, though, feels guilty for the tiniest bits of pleasure, whether she chooses to indulge in them or not. She wonders if that feeling will ever pass.

She remains that way, eyes closed and heart gurgling with guilt, for what feels like hours before Lexa quietly says, “We should return.”

Clarke lets out a soft breath and opens her eyes to find Lexa watching her, waiting for her answer. When she opens her mouth to agree, though, Clarke finds herself asking a question instead. “Is it better there?”

Lexa’s bottom lip juts out in her confusion. “I am lost, Clarke.”

“In Polis,” Clarke clarifies. “You said it would change the way I think about you and your people. Is it better there?”

Lexa seems as surprised to hear the question as Clarke was to find herself asking it, but her eyes soften and she nods nonetheless. “It is,” she answers. “Polis is full of life.”

 _Life_ , Clarke thinks. It is hard for Clarke to even imagine someplace ‘full of life’ when she feels so suffocated with death. Maybe she could get lost in a place like that. Maybe, like a shock to the heart, it could bring her back to life as well.

“I think I want to go.”


	9. Chapter 9

“How far is it to Polis?” Clarke asks as she follows along behind Javas with Lexa somewhat behind her but just visible in her peripheral. They have been walking through the forest for a while now, making their way toward the relief camp that Lexa and her people set up.

Clarke had wanted to leave as soon as she uttered the truth to Lexa about wanting to go to Polis, but Lexa had insisted that Clarke rest some first. So, they had returned to the small fire where Javas still sat awake and on guard, and Lexa informed him that they would leave at first light. That allowed Clarke a few extra hours of sleep though she was hardly able to indulge in them. Her mind had been too awake, too full with thoughts of what might await her in the capital.

“A day’s ride,” Lexa tells her.

Clarke turns to look at her then. “Are we getting horses from the camp?”

Lexa nods once and says nothing.

Clarke wonders what it is about silence with the Grounders. Unlike Clarke’s own people, the Grounders do not feel the need to fill in wordless spaces with meaningless conversation. Confirmation does not require voice and neither does rejection. Explanations need not be lengthy or meticulous or even spoken aloud, and conversation seems to occur primarily in the body and in the eyes—a tilt of the head, a lift of the lips, a roll of a shoulder, a flick of the wrist, a clenching of the jaw.

They are somehow both thorough and direct without ever having to conjure voice, and when they _do_ speak, it is often with few words. They are a people who do not fear the quiet. Rather, they rely on it. In the quiet, they are more alert. In the quiet, any sounds are not their own and thus capture their attention more readily. Maybe that is the reason they seem to cherish the silence, Clarke thinks. Maybe it is about observation and _pres_ ervation. Maybe it is about survival.

She thinks of all the things that slipped by her and the others at the drop ship when the hundred first came to the ground, all the things they never noticed until it was far too late. Clarke wonders if perhaps a little silence and a lot more attention would have changed any of it. Listening more, in general, would have helped a lot, she thinks.

But everything had been loud and fast, eruptive and escalatory. People slipped away and slipped inside. They raged against their former lives and reveled in the chaos of their newfound freedom, and they were carefree. They were care _less_. They were reckless and emotional and vulnerable and _young_.

They didn’t know how to listen.

Clarke sighs and shakes her head. She knows she cannot blame herself for the all the mistakes, all the losses, all the _pain_ , but she does anyway. Each is just another number on her growing list of atrocities.

“Clarke?”

Clarke jolts at the sound of her name and glances over to Lexa who is now closer to her, watching her curiously and holding out a hand. She glances down to see a small pile of berries in Lexa’s cupped, open palm, and Clarke realizes that the Commander had offered her something to eat while she was lost in thought.

“Sorry, I was just thinking,” Clarke mutters, reaching out to take a few berries and pop them between her lips. “Thanks.”

Lexa nods and then pulls her hand back to her side and slips the berries into a small pouch at her waist. “Would you like to discuss it?”

“Huh?”

The barest hint of a smile touches Lexa’s lips as she clarifies. “You were thinking.”

“Oh,” Clarke breathes. She is surprised by the offer and she doesn’t necessarily feel like taking the Commander up on it, but a part of her is grateful that she is being asked regardless. It feels like it has been forever since someone has offered her the easy comfort of just listening.

Clarke glances ahead of them, eyes locking onto Javas’s back before drifting back to Lexa.

“He will not hear,” Lexa says, and Clarke’s brows furrow.

“He’s three feet in front of us,” she replies, and Lexa’s small smile grows only a moment before slipping into a serious line.

“He will listen only if I allow him to,” Lexa tells her, “though if it comforts you, I can send him ahead.”

Clarke snorts and shakes her head. “So you just tell people not to listen and their hearing magically stops working? That is some power you have there, Commander.”

Lexa’s smile returns an inch. “No,” she says, “but they know better than to repeat or use what they have heard if I order otherwise, so it is like they hear nothing at all.”

Clarke shakes her head again and lets out a rasp of a laugh.

“Would you like me to send him ahead?” Lexa asks, falling in stride with Clarke.

“No, it’s fine,” Clarke answers. “I wasn’t really thinking about anything too serious. It’s just been longer than I realized since we were sent down from the Ark. A lot has happened. That’s all.”

Lexa nods. “Time burns faster in the heat of battle.”

“Yeah,” Clarke murmurs, and it strikes her particularly hard how completely that one word, _battle_ , seems to sum up her experience on earth. It feels, now, like it has been one battle after another since the moment Octavia’s feet hit the ground and the Sky kids spilled out into the forest with false freedom on their tongues. They battled with the elements, with hunger and thirst, with each other, with the Grounders … and then Clarke met Lexa.

She battled with her as well, battled for her trust and respect, her assistance and her loyalty. Clarke had even battled for Lexa’s life. In some ways, it feels like Clarke might always be battling with Lexa. She can’t decide if that thought is more comforting or despairing. There is something beautiful about the ways they differ even when it brings them to spitting fire, and there is something sad about the ways they connect and the haunt that seems to dance in both their eyes. So, perhaps it is a bit of both.

“Polis will relieve of you of that burden,” Lexa says, pulling her back to the moment, and Clarke nearly laughs at the words.

If only Lexa knew what Clarke had just been thinking.

Clarke sighs. “I think maybe there isn’t any relief from some battles,” she replies, and out of the corner of her eye she sees Lexa glance at her before turning to face their path again.

“All battles have moments of relief, Clarke,” Lexa says after a long silence, “though it is true that some have no end.”

Clarke is surprised when Lexa then brings a hand to her chest, drawing Clarke’s gaze over to her. She watches Lexa’s fingers tap just above her heart as the Commander says, “Those are the battles that live here, and even those have moments of relief.”

Clarke lets those words sink in and ignite a spark of hope between her ribs. She stamps it out, too afraid to let herself feel its warmth, but the embers never really die.

Her throat feels tight and her eyes are stinging with tears she refuses to let fall, and Clarke is tired of talking. So, she just nods and turns away from Lexa.

Lexa seems to understand that the conversation is over, because she says nothing else and falls back a step to walk behind Clarke. They remain in that order and in silence the rest of the way to camp.

* * *

When they step into the camp, Clarke suddenly feels nervous and uncomfortable. The place is alive with activity, Grounders out in the daylight working at their various tasks. They stop when Lexa stalks through the center of camp, each nodding or dipping their heads in a partial bow as she passes. Clarke ducks her head as she follows along behind Lexa, but she can feel the eyes on her from nearly every direction.

She isn’t the same girl who used to walk through Grounder camps with her head held high and some semblance of power in her hands. She doesn’t know if she will ever be that girl again.

When they reach the large tent erected for the Commander, Lexa sends Javas off to his own tent to rest and motions for Clarke to follow her inside.

“I must gather some items,” Lexa tells her, pointing Clarke toward a chair near a table strewn with maps and papers riddled with words Clarke is unable to read, “but I will order my guards to begin preparations for our departure. We should be able to leave for Polis within the hour.”

Clarke is hardly listening because her eyes have landed on something that has her body practically screaming for her to run toward it. Through a partially opened flap leading to the private quarters of Lexa’s large tent, Clarke can see the rounded edge of a wash basin, and she is suddenly itching to be clean.

“Clarke?”

Blinking, Clarke glances back up to Lexa who is watching her, amused, with her arms crossed over her chest. “Huh?”

“Would you like to bathe before we leave?” Lexa asks, having followed Clarke’s gaze, and Clarke nearly moans in response.

She bites her tongue to keep from doing so and instead asks, “Would that be all right?”

Lexa’s expression softens. “Of course,” she says. The amusement then returns to dance in her eyes as she adds, “It would be preferred. You smell.”

Clarke grabs the nearest item, a rolled map, and throws it at Lexa’s head. The Commander easily dodges it and her lips push up with just the hint of a smile.

“Come, Clarke of the Sky People,” Lexa says, her voice light and teasing. She signals for Clarke to follow her as she turns to head into the private quarters of her tent. “I will draw you a bath.”

Clarke ignores the flood of affection that washes through her chest as she follows after Lexa. She knows it will pass eventually, polluted or dried up by her anger.

Lexa prepares a bath for her in the large elevated wash basin across from her bed, stepping out once to collect hot coals from the central campfire to place under the basin, and Clarke is surprised that the Commander completes the task herself rather than ordering someone else to do it for Clarke. There is something intoxicating about the fact, and Clarke has to throw her attention elsewhere to keep from getting swept up in the feeling.

The rest of what is essentially Lexa’s bedroom is fairly bare, which isn’t terribly surprising given that the camp is meant only to be temporary. Clarke doesn’t even know if Lexa has any personal items with her here at all. She is surprised that there are even things like wash basins and towels here, but then she imagines someone was sent to the nearest village to collect such items. She wonders if there is a room not dissimilar to this one but adorned in Lexa’s personal touch waiting for the Commander somewhere in Polis. She wonders if she will see such a room if there is, and then Clarke curses her mind for going there at all.

Lexa lays out some washcloths and a larger towel as well as a bar of soap for Clarke and then turns toward her. “We can leave when you are finished,” she says, and Clarke nods.

“Okay.” Clarke shuffles awkwardly as they stand only a few feet apart beside the bath. “I’ll try not to be long.”

“It takes as long as it takes,” Lexa replies with the slightest shrug of her shoulder. She then moves to the tent flap leading back into the main room. “I will be nearby.”

Clarke nods. She understands the unspoken words, _if you need anything_.

They hold one another’s gazes only a moment before Lexa turns to leave, the flap of the tent parting to release her and then falling back into place. She sees Lexa tug it more tightly closed before the material goes still and Clarke assumes the Commander is gone.

Now alone, Clarke moves to the small chair near the wash basin and settles down to remove her boots. Once they are off, Clarke pulls her socks free with a grimace. She determines to burn them at the earliest convenience, likely along with the underwear she is still wearing. Her feet are mostly gray and brown with grime, and her toenails are black at the edges from the dirt pushed up under them. Her fingernails don’t look much different.

Clarke stands again, heavy with exhaustion, and pulls her jacket from her shoulders before reaching for the hem of her shirt. She slowly begins to peel her clothes from her body, and each inch of skin revealed makes her breathe easier. Even under her clothes, she isn’t clean. Dirt has caked to her flesh and made her filthy.

When she unclasps her bra and slips it from her shoulders, Clarke closes her eyes and lets out a long sigh of relief. She spends several long moments just stretching her neck to different angles while rubbing at her shoulders where the indentations of her bra straps lay deep and red. Her breasts are the cleanest part of her body, pale and bare of dirt in the candlelight illuminating the tent, though a long wash of grime streaks down between them from where her shirt opened at the top of her cleavage.

She notices, looking down at her chest, that her breasts seem slightly smaller. It is barely noticeable but noticeable all the same. When Clarke runs her fingers over her sides, she can just slightly feel the outlines of her ribs, and she lets out a long, staggered sigh. She feels like she has been slowly wasting away since the moment the drop ship hit the ground, more-so in the last week than ever.

Clarke pops the button of her pants before pushing them, along with the underwear she is set on burning, down her legs. Her fingers brush over the wiry hair on her legs as she does, and she sighs before kicking her pants and underwear off of her feet, and finally she is nude. She swallows thickly as the scents on her skin waft up to her nose and Clarke breathes herself in. She smells like sweat and earth and the metallic tang of blood. She smells as unclean as she feels. It makes her stomach lurch.

Before making any moves to bathe, Clarke turns her attention to the bandage on her hand. She picks at it a moment before peeling it off and inspecting the wound between her thumb and index finger. The salve has dried atop it but she can clearly see that the cut already looks much better, less red and swollen, and the pain has lessened significantly. It will be good to wash the wound again, and then hopefully Lexa or one of the camp healers can apply a fresh coating of salve and a new bandage. If the materials are provided, Clarke can even do it herself.

Clarke reaches for one of the two small washcloths on the stand beside the basin first and dips it into the water. Clarke figures it is best to wipe herself down to remove as much grime as possible before entering the bath. This way, she can hopefully avoid muddying up her water too much. She can’t expect to get clean in filthy water.

When the cloth is saturated, Clarke rings it out a bit and then presses it first to her face. She wipes over the flesh of her face and is amazed at how clean even only a few swipes of the cloth make her feel. She wipes down from her face to her neck, over her chest and stomach, and then back up to her arms. Raising her arm, Clarke runs the cloth down its length and glances to the small patch of hair pricking through the skin under her arm. It is as wiry and wild as the hair on her legs, though nowhere near as long. She hasn’t had the opportunity to shave and she honestly doesn’t care.

The first time she swiped a razor down her limbs and under her arms after hitting the ground was after the Ark came down and Camp Jaha was erected. It had taken an extraordinary amount of time to shave her legs and armpits smooth, let alone tame the forest that had taken up residence between her thighs, growing out onto them. Clarke had been surprised to find the razor not made blunt by the time she had finished.

Clarke wipes down the length of her legs, over her feet, and between her toes. She curls her lip at the disgusting state of the washcloth once she is finished before dropping it onto the tent floor with her pile of dirty clothing. She then steps over the edge of the wash basin, coals still glowing softly beneath it, and sinks slowly down into the warm water.

The sigh that pulls from her lips as the water envelops her borders on a moan and sounds as if it soared all the way up from her soul. Clarke closes her eyes and revels in the feeling of being submerged in warmth. She lays there until she nearly falls asleep before splashing a little water on her face and reaching for the second washcloth and the small brown block of soap on the stand beside her. She rolls the soap around in the cloth, both dunked under the water, until she works up a good lather and then begins to wash herself.

Clarke stands and scrubs the soapy cloth over her limbs and torso, digging in with her nails until she feels so clean that her skin is raw and stinging, and then more gently between her legs and down her backside. Sinking back down into the water, she runs her hands over her body under the water to help rinse the soap away and then scoots down in the basin so that she can duck her head under.

Keeping her face above the water, Clarke breathes in fresh air that smells so clean it nearly makes her eyes sting with tears as she scrubs her fingers around in her hair. A soft moan escapes her as her nails scratch over her scalp beneath the water, and Clarke wants to stay in this bath for the rest of her life.

She wonders if the Grounders use the same soap for their hair that they do for their bodies, because she doesn’t see any other product near the basin. So, she shrugs and reaches for the bar of soap again. She can only hope it doesn’t make her hair brittle. Clarke gets a good lather built up on her palms before running them through her hair now fully saturated, and she perhaps gets carried away with it because it takes an extraordinary amount of time to rinse her hair entirely clean of all the soap.

When she is finished washing and is feeling newly re-energized with her cleanliness, Clarke lingers in the water a moment longer before sighing and standing to get out. It is amazing how much better this one experience has made her feel, like she has scrubbed away part of her sorrow or part of her anger … part of her past. It feels freeing to be clean again.

She rings out her hair and pats it with the towel from the stand until it is no longer dripping and then Clarke steps from the basin. She dries herself quickly, running the towel over her body until the last bits of moisture are gone, and then turns to dress herself. Clarke freezes when she realizes that she has nothing to wear; well, nothing but the filthy clothes she has been wearing for entirely too long now, and she _really_ doesn’t want to spoil this feeling or her cleanliness in general by re-donning those clothes.

Clarke chews on her bottom lip for a few seconds, considering her options despite the fact that she only has two. Put on the dirty clothes or call for Lexa to see if she can get some new ones. She wonders if Lexa will even hear her if she calls; then again, the Commander did say that she would be _nearby_. Clarke wraps her towel tightly around her body, runs a hand through her wet hair, and then takes a breath and quietly, experimentally, calls out, “Lexa?”

When she doesn’t receive a response, Clarke thinks that Lexa has maybe left the tent for a moment, but then the flap to the main room suddenly pulls back and Lexa walks in without thought.

“Yes, Cl—” The words die in Lexa’s throat when the Commander’s eyes lock onto Clarke standing like a statue beside the wash basin, wrapped in a towel with her wet hair laying over her shoulder and her blue eyes wide and her bottom lip tucked between her teeth. Even from across the room, Clarke can physically _see_ Lexa swallow down her words like they are stones inside her throat.

Clarke feels like she is on fire, and she knows her cheeks have to be red. Here she is, standing in front of the Commander in nothing but a towel with her hairy legs and her blatant expression of surprise on full display, and Clarke thinks she has probably never been less desirable in her entire life. Except, Lexa is looking at her like Clarke is the most radiant thing she has ever seen, and Clarke thinks that might only make her burn hotter.

The Commander’s lips are parted just an inch, and while her body seems to be frozen in place, her eyes move rapidly up and down Clarke’s full length, lingering here and there.

Clarke clears her throat and Lexa visibly jolts. Her gaze shoots up to lock onto Clarke’s and then Lexa swiftly turns away, putting her back to Clarke.

“I apologize, Clarke,” Lexa says, and Clarke’s stomach churns at the low, raspy quality of the Commander’s voice. “I should not have stared.”

Clarke inhales deeply through her nose and clenches her thighs together. She clears her throat again and asks, “I was wondering if you had something I could wear. My clothes need to be washed.” She curls her toes under as she shifts her weight from leg to leg, and she laughs awkwardly when she adds, “Some of it should probably be burned.”

Lexa doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t make a sound. She only nods and then moves toward the opposite side of the room, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on her task and _away_ from Clarke. Her movements are rigid and choppy, and Clarke thinks she has never seen Lexa more uncomfortable than she is in this moment. It is somewhat endearing.

Lexa gathers a few items of clothing for Clarke and sets them on the bed. She keeps her head down as she makes her way back toward the tent flap that leads to the main room but before she can step through, Clarke calls out to her again.

“Lexa?” she says, and Lexa stills with her back to Clarke.

“Yes?”

Clarke sighs and whispers, “Thank you.”

She watches as Lexa’s shoulders slowly drop, her body relaxing at the words, and then in a whisper no louder than Clarke’s own had been, the Commander says, “You are welcome, Clarke.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarke finally lets loose a little of what she has been holding inside. Enjoy, and thank you all for the continued support! XO-Chrmdpoet

The first thing Clarke realizes is that Grounder clothes are much more comfortable than they look, though they certainly take more effort to don than her own clothes ever have. There are a lot of layers, because several pieces are only partial pieces, and there is an extraordinary amount of straps and ties. Clarke finds something very soothing about the process of dressing, though. She is able to block out the world and focus on this one task, one piece after another, and for a while, she and life can be simple again.

The undergarments are strange but not uncomfortable, more wrapping than anything. The bra is bandeau style, and Clarke is actually relieved to not have to mess with over-the-shoulder straps given that she can still feel the indentations of her previous bra straps in the flesh of her shoulders. The stretchy but tight material wraps around from the back, crosses comfortably over her breasts so that they are cupped, supported, and covered, and then stretches to tie in place in the back. It takes Clarke several tries to get a good tie with her hands behind her back, but she doesn’t want to call Lexa in after the awkward towel moment, so she keeps at it until she manages a tie that feels good and secure. The underwear is a bit simpler and more familiar to Clarke. It is a piece she has to pull up over her legs, but it fits more like a tight pair of shorts with a bit of extra material that wraps around her upper thighs.

Clarke is surprised by how little it bothers her to be wearing someone else’s underwear, _Lexa’s_ underwear. She tries to ignore the tickle she gets in her stomach that tells her just how much it _doesn’t_ bother her at all. They are clean, and Lexa is clean, and it isn’t as if she has any other options. Unless there is a seamstress nearby who can whip something up for her in under an hour, this is her only choice, and after experiencing what it is like to spend extended periods of time in the same undergarments, often entirely _un_ clean, Clarke is convinced that clean is the only thing that matters.

The pants Lexa set out for her are a tight fit though not uncomfortably so. The dark gray material wraps around her thighs like it is painted on but she still has a good bit of flexibility. The pants only extend down to a knee on one leg, so she pulls another long, soft piece set out for her up from the ankle of her exposed leg. It reaches up to her lower thigh and looks like it is made of a combination of black mesh and denim, and Clarke locks it into place with a thigh cuff that sits just above her knee. The cuff has a side loop that looks like it is made to carry a dagger, but Clarke has no plans to use it. She doesn’t even _have_ a dagger.

She pulls on a pair of thick, warm socks that stretch up toward the middle of her calves, and then finishes her bottom half by pulling on her own boots. She is glad to be able to contribute at least one item to her outfit since she feels like she is taking over Lexa’s wardrobe. Who knew she would spend a week brooding in the forest, angry at the world and at the Commander, only to end up in said Commander’s clothes. Survival is funny in that way.

The top she dons is styled like a tunic, extending down to mid-thigh, and somehow manages to look both gray and navy in color. It is tighter than Clarke expected it to be but not so much that it squeezes her lungs. The top chest portion is shredded in places and has a long strap that buckles across her collarbone to hold it up and in place. The sleeves extend to only just past her elbows, and she covers the rest of her arms with long bluish-gray leather bracers that tie up the length of her inner forearms and end in thin fingerless gloves.

The ties of her bracers are ones that, after several tries, she realizes she cannot manage alone. Perhaps the Grounders have developed the skill to tie singlehandedly, but Clarke is no Grounder, regardless of how she is now dressed. She needs help.

“Lexa?” she calls, and she fights a smile when Lexa doesn’t simply rush in like she did before.

The Commander calls back from the other side of the tent flap, and she doesn’t ask a question. She merely says, “Clarke,” to let Clarke know that she is present and has heard her.

Clarke clears her throat and asks, “Could you help me?” There is no answer for a moment, and Clarke has the feeling that Lexa is hesitant about entering the room, so she reassures her. “I’m dressed.”

As soon as the words are out of Clarke’s mouth, Lexa pulls back the flap and enters. Clarke is surprised when the Commander freezes in place just inside the room, much like she had when Clarke had been in only a towel. Her gaze roams over Clarke, standing at the foot of Lexa’s bed, and then she blinks and makes her way over.

“Can you tie these?” Clarke asks, holding her arms out to show the unlaced bracers.

Lexa nods once, steps in closer, and reaches for the laces. The air grows thick and nearly electric between them as Lexa begins tying, and every few seconds she glances up at Clarke, who glances away each time their eyes lock. Lexa smiles and quietly says, “My clothing suits you.”

Clarke lets out a shaky breath that borders on an awkward laugh. “Well, don’t expect to see me on the cover of _Trikru Magazine_ or anything,” she jokes, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

Lexa arches a brow but her smile only grows, and Clarke adds, “You wear it better anyway.”

She bites her tongue the second the compliment escapes her, but it is too late to take it back. Clarke doesn’t know why she hates herself for it, but something about playing nice with Lexa makes her stomach roll. She is angry. She knows she is angry. She wants that anger. She needs it. She is desperate to hold onto it.

The anger keeps her safe. It keeps her distant. It keeps her from falling back into the vulnerable place of trusting someone who has already proven herself untrustworthy. Sometimes, though, that anger floats away in the green sea of Lexa’s eyes and the slight curve of her small smile, and Clarke wonders if she needs it at all.

Lexa licks her lips and clears her throat, averting her attention back to the bracers. She is quick and methodical with her lacing, and once both are tied, she steps back and looks Clarke over once more.

“Done?” Clarke asks, and Lexa gives her a firm nod. They stand only a few feet apart now, just staring at one another. Clarke chews at her bottom lip and glances down at herself, picks at her fingernails. She notices the cut on her hand and is reminded that she needs a new bandage, so she holds up her hand in a show of the wound. “Fresh bandage?”

Lexa glances toward the wound and nods again before motioning for Clarke to follow her. When they step outside Lexa’s tent, the Commander points toward another, smaller tent only a few down from her own. “The healer’s tent is there,” she says. “I will have your clothes washed while she tends to your hand.”

Clarke doesn’t respond but simply takes off in that direction. She is eager to get away from Lexa, if only for the chance to breathe fresh air not charged with the strange sort of tension that always seems to dance between them whenever they are near one another. It stays with her, though, like that tension has somehow slipped from the air and taken up residence in her bones. It feels inescapable.

* * *

The healer is a tall, younger woman that Clarke does not recognize. Like the other Grounders, she doesn’t say much. She nods when Clarke enters the tent and then turns back to the very thin and frail looking woman on the cot in the corner. Clarke turns her gaze away and lingers near the tent flap, waiting her turn.

“You need aid?” the young Grounder asks when she approaches Clarke a moment later.

Clarke nods and turns to face her, taking in the details of her appearance up close. She is strikingly beautiful with long dark hair that is red in places and riddled with braids, and light brown eyes speckled with green. Clarke holds up her hand and watches those eyes flicker down to her wound before the healer nods again.

Clarke slides into a chair by a nearby table and waits while the healer collects supplies. “I’m Clarke,” she says when the young woman returns.

“Of the Sky People,” the healer replies with a nod. “I know.”

“Oh.”

“I am Mani,” she adds, before pulling Clarke’s hand into one of her own and applying a light film of a sticky paste-like salve.

“Mani,” Clarke repeats quietly. She glances over to the frail woman in the corner as Mani begins wrapping her hand. “Is she going to be all right?”

Mani nods. “She is weak,” she says. “She was one rescued from the mountain.”

Clarke’s stomach curls into knots that push up into her diaphragm and make her feel like the wind has been knocked out of her. “Oh,” she croaks again.

Mani finishes her wrapping in silence, and when she ties the bandage in place, Clarke stands on shaky legs and makes her way toward the tent opening. “Thank you,” she says, voice strained, and she doesn’t look back before leaving.

“Clarke of the Sky People,” Mani calls just after Clarke steps out of the tent, and Clarke stills.

Her feet feel like they have grown into the ground and she can’t move, but she doesn’t have to. Mani appears in front of her a moment later, having followed her out of the tent. Clarke’s eyes sting with unshed tears when she glances up at the healer and waits.

Mani stares at her for a long time before whispering, “ _Mochof_.”

Clarke sucks in a sharp breath through her nose and shakes her head. “What are you thanking me for? I haven’t done anything.”

“You rescued our people from the mountain,” Mani says. “My sister was one of those taken.”

Clarke’s heart feels like it is trying to wrench its way out from beneath her ribs as she shakes her head again to deny the claim. “Your Commander freed your people, not me,” she tells the healer, and she hates the way bile gurgles at the base of her throat when she says the words. The thought of the deal Lexa made and the memory of the way Clarke felt standing in front of her, feeling the full force of betrayal, makes her stomach clench with nausea.

Mani takes a step forward and places her hand gently atop Clarke’s left shoulder. “ _Heda_ says our people would still be in cages if not for _skaikru_.”

Clarke feels like she can’t swallow enough, like there is a lump the size of Mount Weather jammed in her throat and no matter how she tries, she can’t force it down. She says nothing to the healer and barely manages to nod, and when Mani squeezes her shoulder once more before stepping past Clarke to return to her tent, Clarke’s eyes lock onto the Commander.

Lexa stands at the entrance of her own tent, expression curious as she watches Clarke. When Clarke looks at her, Lexa tilts her head to the right to signal Clarke over, and Clarke thinks she would rather run.

She would rather run back into the forest and bury her head in the ground. She would rather sink down into the dirt right here until she is completely buried and silent. She would rather be anywhere but here, right now, with all the intensity of the war inside her presently visible on her face and in the rigidity of her body. She feels terribly exposed.

It feels like hours, though only seconds, before Clarke is able to make her feet move. Her pace increases with each step as she moves toward the Commander. She stalks right by Lexa and into the tent, speaking as she passes. “You told your people that mine rescued them from Mount Weather.”

Lexa follows her inside. “Yes,” she says simply from behind Clarke.

Clarke whirls around, eyes a wild blue and wet. “Why?”

Lexa blinks, slow and easy, as she stands straight and stiff and looks at Clarke. “It is the truth.”

A fire sparks to life in Clarke’s chest. She is consumed in seconds. “So, you can just _admit_ that? You _know_ that, and yet you still left us to die?”

Lexa closes her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. She holds her ground when she nods and says, “I had no intention of betraying you, Clarke. It pained me to do so, but what I did was what _needed_ to be done. It was the smart choice.”

“Smart?” Clarke snaps. “You think forging an alliance with people who are technologically advanced and actually capable of, you know, _using_ all that equipment in the mountain that your people have feared for a century and then _betraying_ those people was _smart_?”

Lexa says nothing, though her stare is penetrating and as hard as the line of her jaw.

“I get why you did what you did, Lexa,” Clarke tells her, shifting in place from the energy and anger now pulsing through her body. “I _really_ do, because you were guaranteed that all _your_ people would be freed and safe, and that’s what we were both out to do—save our people.”

Lexa nods.

“But don’t stand there and tell me it was the smart choice when the consequences of it could have gotten a lot more of your people killed,” Clarke continues. She is hot, burning, and she can’t hold the war inside anymore. It is bubbling in her chest and in her throat and she feels like she will explode if she doesn’t just let it free.

“People die in war,” she snaps. “That’s what you said. You let hundreds of people burn in TonDC for that very reason, and you knew, we _both_ knew, that more would die at Mount Weather. That was something we were willing to risk. That was something we knew we were walking into, and it was something that our people knew _they_ were walking into. We knew we would lose people both inside and outside the mountain, but we chose to go anyway, and we _had_ them, Lexa! We had the mountain men backed into a corner.”

“Clarke,” Lexa says but Clarke shakes her head and cuts her off.

“No, _no_ ,” Clarke growls. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I want you to listen.”

Lexa’s jaw works back and forth before she simply grits her teeth and nods.

“You took a deal that would have left _my_ people inside the mountain for dead, and I had to do truly _terrible_ things to keep that from happening,” Clarke hisses. “ _My_ people, Lexa! You remember them? They’re the ones who disabled the acid fog. They’re the ones who shut down the power grid. They’re the ones who infiltrated the mountain and discovered your people in cages in the first place! _My_ people are the ones who backed the mountain men so far into a corner that they had to offer you a deal. They were hoping that without your support, we wouldn’t be able to finish what we set out to do.”

Clarke steps forward and into Lexa’s space. Her chest heaves with every sharp breath she takes.

“You only got that deal, Lexa, because _my_ people got it for you,” she says, “and you turned your back on them. You turned your back on me. You think it was a smart choice? Then why don’t you consider this—my people could have taken the mountain. We could have terrorized the Grounders for your betrayal. We could have become the new mountain men, Lexa, because that’s what betrayal does to people. It opens the door for revenge. You and I both know it. _Jus drein jus daun_ , right?”

Lexa stiffens further, and her voice is low as it slithers through her lips. “I did consider this, Clarke,” she replies. “You are right to be angry. I would have been as well. That is why I ordered Javas to stay behind. He was to observe your people, to learn if you escaped the mountain. He was to follow you if you did, to listen and watch for signs of retaliation.”

Clarke lets out a bitter laugh. “Of course,” she says. “I don’t know why I thought maybe somewhere in your frigid heart you just _cared_ about me and wanted to make sure I was all right. Of course it was another war tactic. Betray us and then hang back to make sure we don’t do anything about it. Right.”

“The safety of my people comes first,” Lexa defends. “It always has and it always will. That is what it means to lead them. My life belongs to them and their lives are mine to protect, but when I told you I cared, Clarke, I meant it. My care for you is what kept Javas with you even after you left your people.”

The anger ripping through Clarke’s body suddenly just washes out like it has been swept up in a wave. It drifts out into exhaustion and then numbness. “Yeah,” she breathes, the energy slipping from her voice and leaving it raw. “I know.”

“Clarke,” Lexa says, her own voice dropping to a whisper. Her eyes grow soft and pained as she steps closer, eliminating the space between them so that their chests are nearly brushing. “Please understand.”

Clarke gasps in a hard breath that squeezes painfully back out of her lungs, pulling tears with it. “That’s the thing,” she croaks. “I _do_ understand. I killed hundreds of people in that mountain to save less than a hundred of my own. I pulled that lever, and I watched them die, and I told myself I _had_ to. I _do_ understand, Lexa, and I hate myself for it every day.”

She pushes past Lexa then, their arms brushing together and their hands briefly touching. Even in her anger, Clarke finds some measure of comfort in being physically close to the Commander. She fears it is a feeling that may never pass. She fears more the fact that some part of her doesn’t want it to.

“I need some air,” Clarke says, moving toward the opening of the tent. She stops before stepping out and turns back to Lexa, who has turned to watch her leave. “I wouldn’t have, you know.”

Lexa tilts her head in question and Clarke sighs.

“I wouldn’t have tried to get revenge,” Clarke clarifies. “I could have, but I wouldn’t do that, even if my people wanted to.”

Lexa nods. “I know,” she says. “That is not who you are.”

“You don’t know me,” Clarke rasps, though she knows it is a lie. She wishes it wasn’t.

Lexa licks her lips and shakes her head. “I know you, Clarke.”

Fresh tears pool in Clarke’s eyes as she caves and mutters, “I know.”

She turns to leave again but just as she slips through the flap, Lexa’s hand wraps gently around her elbow. When Clarke turns to look at her, Lexa swallows thickly and in a quiet rasp, she admits, “I would have pulled the lever for you.”

Clarke’s heart clenches so hard that she presses her hand to her chest and closes her eyes. “I know that too,” she whispers and then pulls free from Lexa’s grasp and walks toward the tree line. She is in desperate need of a breath that isn’t rife with the way she hates Lexa and the way she can’t hate Lexa at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Mochof." - "Thank you."  
> "Jus drein jus daun." - "Blood must have blood."


	11. Chapter 11

Clarke wanders into the forest to clear her head, though she is sure to keep close to the tree line so that the camp remains in sight and within hearing distance. She left her gun in Lexa’s tent, having forgotten to clip it back on once she had finished redressing, and thus she is currently weaponless. If anything or any _one_ attacks her, she wants to be close enough to run back to safety or at least be heard if she calls for help.

Still, even only a few steps into the forest are enough to help her breathe.

The trees tower over her as she drops onto a fallen moss-covered trunk, and Clarke is able to feel small again. She is able to shrink and disappear in the vast green until she is as still and as quiet as the plants around her. The chaos inside her dies down to a whisper as she lays back on the trunk and stares up into the foliage overhead and the blue sky peeking through.

Clarke wonders if that chaos will ever truly die or if it can only be contained, if it can only be quieted to a murmur inside her veins but never rendered silent. She thinks maybe once it is inside you, you can never truly escape it. It becomes the background music to your daily life, playing quietly in the recesses of the mind but always capable of crescendo, always capable of an encore. She thinks maybe she is doomed to have its rhythm rocking along her bones for the rest of her life.

Lexa’s words ripple through her mind like a steady current.

_I would have pulled the lever for you._

Even in the wake of everything, Clarke has no doubt that the words are true. Lexa would have taken that burden entirely upon herself, especially if it meant sparing Clarke having to do so. Clarke knows she never would have allowed Lexa to do it alone. Much like Bellamy had done for her, Clarke would have held Lexa’s hand and shared the weight of that decision, a decision that no one should ever have to make and especially never alone. The knowledge that Lexa would have done it for Clarke without hesitation, though, is overwhelming in its magnitude.

_I would have pulled the lever for you._

That statement was more than mere words, and Clarke knows Lexa meant it to be. It was a promise, heavy and encompassing and _full_ , and Clarke can hardly breathe against the press of it. The gravity of what Lexa had been trying to communicate to her is enough to hold Clarke to this earth even if the atmosphere somehow rips apart to send them floating.

_I would have pulled the lever for you._

_I would have taken your burdens upon myself. I would have borne the weight of this hell for you. I would have taken innocent blood on my hands to keep yours clean. I would have given up pieces of my soul so that yours may remain whole. I would have sheltered you from this. I would have sheltered you._

Clarke thinks this might be the most precious, private confession she has ever heard. It shreds her anger to tatters and leaves her open and raw and reeling. She is utterly riveted by it.

She jumps up into a sitting position when she hears footsteps approaching, and she is surprised to see Lexa taking heavy steps toward her. Clarke knows that Lexa could have easily snuck up on her, so the Commander must have deliberately made noise to keep from startling Clarke. She sighs when Lexa settles down beside her on the fallen trunk.

“Has it been longer than I realized?” Clarke asks, wondering if she has somehow managed to lie on this log for hours, trapped inside her thoughts, without even realizing it.

“No,” Lexa tells her with a slight shake of her head. “Moments only.”

“Oh.” Clarke suddenly feels very vulnerable, though she doesn’t know why. She thinks maybe it has to do with the thoughts she had been having just before Lexa caught her attention. She thinks maybe it has to do with the fact that she has spent nearly every moment since Mount Weather feeling dead inside but every time Lexa is near, it’s like Clarke’s entire body wakes up and reminds her that she is alive, alive, _alive._ She thinks it might have to do with the fact that without her anger, she doesn’t know who to be anymore. It was the only thing holding her together and now it feels shredded, slipping away.

Lexa’s fingers knot together in her lap and her green eyes stare out into the trees and away from Clarke. She says nothing.

Clarke licks her lips and takes a breath. “You know, usually when someone walks away from you saying that they need some air, it means they want to be alone.” She bites her tongue as soon as the words are out, and she nearly slaps a hand over her mouth. She watches the way Lexa shifts slightly away from her, and Clarke lets out a harsh breath and says, “I’m sorry. That was mean. I don’t know why I said that.”

Lexa ignores the words and instead pulls a dagger from her boot, flips it in her hand so that she is gripping it by the blade, and holds it across her body and out to Clarke. She keeps her eyes trained on the forest in front of her as she speaks. “You left without a weapon.”

“Oh,” Clarke mutters, “yeah.” She takes the dagger and lets out an awkward, partially strangled laugh as she says, “After my episode in the tent, I’m surprised you trust me not to try to slit your throat or something.” It is probably the poorest joke Clarke has ever made and as soon as it leaves her mouth, she feels the overwhelming urge to turn the dagger on herself.

Lexa looks at her then, shifting fully to face Clarke. Her expression is solemn as she reaches out and wraps her hand around the one of Clarke’s that is holding the dagger.

Clarke’s pulse is like thunder in her ears as Lexa pulls the dagger, still in Clarke’s hand, up to her own throat and holds the blade against her flesh. Lexa presses Clarke’s hand, causing the blade to push against the Commander’s neck, but she doesn’t use enough force to actually break the skin.

“What are you doing?” Clarke asks, her voice quiet and shaky.

Lexa’s face is calm, lineless. Her body is relaxed. “Do you remember when we hunted the sniper?” she asks.

Clarke lets out a staggered breath and nods.

“You were angry,” Lexa says. “It was not only about protecting our people but also about revenge.”

“He—”

“I know what he did,” Lexa interrupts. She swallows and the blade moves against her pulse with the motion.

Clarke watches it happen with her heart in her throat. She tries to carefully pull back on the dagger, inch it away from Lexa’s throat, but the Commander’s grip is ironclad. The dagger remains pressed against her neck and Clarke’s hand remains wrapped around it.

“We both wanted him dead,” Lexa continues.

“Yeah,” Clarke replies, “but killing him didn’t make me feel any better, remember? I thought it would but it didn’t.”

“I know,” Lexa tells her. “Still, he earned his death.”

“He did,” Clarke says.

Lexa holds her gaze in silence for several long moments before she releases Clarke’s hand, drops her own to her lap, and asks, “Do you believe I have earned mine?”

Clarke’s heart clenches so forcefully that it actually pulls sound from her lips. She lets out a wheeze of a breath and then sucks another in as hard and as fast as she can. Her hand trembles slightly around the dagger as she is ensnared in Lexa’s gaze, quiet and contemplative. Lexa is willing to be pressed against the sharp slide of Clarke’s anger.

Throat tight and eyes stinging with tears, Clarke pulls the dagger away from Lexa’s throat and lets out a heavy sigh. “No,” she says, and she means it more than that single word can express. “No, Lexa, you haven’t.”

They sit in silence for quite some time, Clarke’s entire body feeling like it just tipped over the edge and is now crashing from a bad high she never wanted or asked for. Her hand still trembles around the dagger that remains gripped against her palm. She stares down at it as her heart thuds roughly against her chest. She is shaken.

When Lexa’s hand suddenly slithers atop hers again, fear spikes in Clarke’s heart, but the Commander makes no move to pull the dagger toward her again. She puts no pressure on Clarke’s hand. She simply swipes her thumb gently across the back of Clarke’s knuckles, and when Clarke looks up at her, Lexa whispers, “Neither have you.”

Clarke barely has time to process the words before Lexa is standing and turning back toward camp. The Commander doesn’t look back but merely calls over her shoulder when she says, “We leave for Polis shortly.”

Clarke can only gape after her, flooded with the swift realization that the anger she holds so hotly in her veins has always been more aimed at herself than at Lexa. She thinks maybe a part of her knew this all along. Lexa knew it as well.

* * *

The horses are already prepared for their journey when Clarke returns to camp, Lexa’s dagger secured in the metal loop on the side of her thigh cuff. She sees her clothes laid out along the tail-end of one horse’s back so that the sun can dry them as they travel. The other horse is loaded up with leather pouches and bags, the contents of which are unknown to Clarke. One of Lexa’s warriors sits atop a third steed near the other two, waiting for departure.

Clarke nearly rams into someone on her way into Lexa’s tent. She startles and grabs the person to steady herself before realizing who it is and jerking her hands back immediately. “Sorry.”

Indra stands like a statue in front of her, her spine and jaw both as rigid as Clarke has ever seen them. Clarke expects Indra to scoff at her or simply stalk off, but she is shocked when the hardened woman’s eyes soften for a moment before Indra quietly mutters, “Octavia?”

Clarke melts at the name, all the tension leaving her body. Her own expression softens as she says, “She is alive.”

Indra nods and then moves to walk away but Clarke calls quietly after her before she can get too far. The Grounder doesn’t turn but stills in place, her back to Clarke, and Clarke says, “She was incredible. She kept us alive. You would have been proud of her.”

Indra remains rigid and in place for several long seconds before Clarke sees the subtle nod of the woman’s head and then she is gone, stalking off through the camp.

Clarke enters the Commander’s tent and finds Lexa bent over the table strewn with maps. She looks up when Clarke steps inside and asks, “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Clarke says and then points toward the back of the tent. “I just need to get my gun, unless you packed it already. Did you?”

Lexa shakes her head, and Clarke remembers that the Grounders and guns do not mix. She heads toward the back part of the tent and slips through the flap. Her gun is right where she left it near the wash basin.

It looks a little awkward now that she is wearing Grounder clothes, but it’s the only weapon she has that she is decently trained to use. She slips on the hip holster, makes sure it is secure, and then heads back out into the main part of the tent.

“Okay,” she says. “Good to go.”

Lexa lets the smallest of smiles touch her lips as she looks at Clarke. “Are you ready for Polis, Clarke?” she asks, and Clarke can see that there is actually what appears to be a spark of thrill in Lexa’s eyes. It makes Clarke’s stomach flip.

She lets out a soft laugh. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

Lexa nods and leads Clarke out to their waiting horses.

The warrior escorting them to Polis says nothing when they approach him. He merely waits for them to mount and then taps his heels and takes off. Clarke is certain she recognizes the Grounder but she cannot remember his name, or maybe she never learned it. It doesn’t seem to matter much given that he sets a decent distance between his horse and theirs, staying far out ahead of them.

“Javas isn’t coming to Polis?” Clarke asks as they trot along.

Lexa shakes her head. “His hunting skill is needed here,” she answers. “The weak must be well fed.”

Clarke understands but she still feels somewhat disappointed. She thinks she might actually miss having Javas around, especially with the way he seems to be able to reach through Lexa’s walls and pull the young spirit from within.

Clarke wonders if she will be able to accomplish that on her own. She wonders why she should even want to. No amount of wondering changes the fact that she _knows_ she will try.

* * *

The steady shifting of the horse beneath her lulls Clarke to sleep as the animal clomps alongside Lexa’s steed on a thin dirt trail winding through the forest. She jolts awake every time her head bobs forward, chin dropping toward her chest, and blinks rapidly until she is convinced she is fully alert again. The feeling lasts only a few moments, though, before her head is bobbing again.

When her body goes completely lax and she nearly slips off the side of her horse, Clarke jerks awake at the feel of Lexa’s palm pressing into her left shoulder to keep her from falling. Blushing, she mutters, “Thanks,” and wipes quickly at the bit of drool at the corner of her mouth before shifting back to the center of the horse’s back.

“Of course,” Lexa says, retracting her hand.

Clarke glances over when she hears the amusement lacing Lexa’s voice. She glares at the side of the Commander’s face and at the smile she can clearly see Lexa barely managing to suppress. “Don’t even think about laughing,” she warns.

Lexa licks her lips, the soft flesh there twitching with the effort it takes to keep from laughing. “I was not thinking about it, Clarke.”

“You were definitely thinking about it,” Clarke fires back.

“Should I keep my hand pressed to your shoulder?” the Commander teases, a smile tugging at her lips. “It is very strong. You can sleep against it.” Her smile only grows when she adds, “It would be unfortunate, however, if you fell to your right.”

Clarke lets out a soft raspy laugh that she tells herself is okay to set free. It feels good, bubbling across the surface of her tongue. “If by unfortunate you mean that I would tumble to the ground and probably be clomped to death by my own horse, then yeah, that would be unfortunate.”

Lexa shakes her head as she grins. “You should have slept before we left for camp this morning, Clarke.”

“I couldn’t,” Clarke sighs. “Too much on my mind.”

Lexa nods.

“It’s coming back to bite me in the ass now,” Clarke adds, and Lexa nods again.

Clarke rolls her eyes and silently wishes she had something to throw at Lexa’s head. “The nodding is so helpful in keeping me awake, thanks,” she says, and Lexa arches a brow.

“Would you like a story?” the Commander offers, tone still dripping with her amusement.

“Stories are for putting people to sleep,” Clarke tells her, “not for keeping them awake.”

Lexa rolls one shoulder in a partial shrug, and Clarke smiles.

“Maybe another time, though,” she says, and Clarke swears she sees a spark of hope in Lexa’s eyes when the Commander glances her way.

Clarke feels that same spark somewhere between her ribs.

* * *

They ride until the sun is low in the sky before stopping to eat, and Clarke nearly cries with joy when she slides off her horse’s back and can finally massage her ass. She is not accustomed to riding horses, and her inner thighs and buttocks are burning with the evidence of her inexperience. She is thankful to spend an hour or so sitting down.

Lexa provides the three of them with several strips of dried meats and ample berries from the bags loaded onto her horse, along with a few water canteens filled to the brim with clean water that is mostly warm by now. They sit together in silence and eat, but as soon as Lexa’s warrior is finished, he rises to his feet and wanders off into the trees.

Clarke watches him go before asking, “Is he okay? He hasn’t said a word the entire time he’s been with us.”

Lexa stares toward the trees where the man disappeared. “Algor is mute,” she says, turning back to Clarke. “He cannot speak.”

“Oh,” Clarke says, biting her lip. “That makes sense then.”

Silence envelops them again, growing thick and tense as she and Lexa sit side by side in the steadily darkening forest. Clarke swears once that Lexa shifts closer to her but then she thinks maybe she only imagined it. It’s a thought that, like nearly all thoughts relative to Lexa, has Clarke’s body rebelling against her brain.

“You have liberties that I do not have.”

Clarke’s head snaps up at the words to find Lexa’s gaze trained on her in the dying light of the day. Her eyes are stormy, a green torrential rain of emotions that seems almost as loud as it appears. Clarke feels drenched and destroyed by that stare within seconds. 

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“We have both been called to lead our people, Clarke,” Lexa says, “but you have liberties that I do not have.”

“What liberties?” Clarke pushes. She isn’t sure where this is coming from but it is rare for Lexa to open the door for conversation, especially the kind of conversation that sinks beneath the surface, and Clarke knows that whatever is about to be said is important. “What liberties do I have?”

“You are here,” Lexa tells her simply. “You walked away from your people.”

“I—” Clarke starts to defend herself, but Lexa shakes her head and places her hand atop Clarke’s knee for only a moment before retracting it.

“I am not attacking you,” Lexa assures. “I understand why you need time. I only aim to make _you_ understand that that time is a luxury that _I_ do not have.”

A lump forms in Clarke’s throat, large and jagged, and she suddenly feels like she can’t breathe.

“You can walk away from your people,” Lexa continues, “because there are others who can lead them. There are others who can make vital decisions. You have friends and family who lead at your side and who you can trust to keep your people safe.”

Understanding sinks in like a stone dropping heavily into the pit of Clarke’s stomach. “And you don’t,” Clarke whispers, the words so quiet that they hardly stir the air at all.

Lexa blinks slowly, head tilting down in a soft nod. “I am only one among thousands of my kind,” she says, “but I am also the only one those thousands depend on for security and prosperity. I am responsible for their lives and the lives of their children. I am solely responsible.”

“Lexa,” Clarke tries again, her voice strained, but Lexa holds up her hand.

“You asked me to listen to you today,” Lexa says firmly, and it hits Clarke why this conversation is happening. It is because of what happened in the tent, Clarke’s emotional explosion that Lexa had endured. “Now I wish you to do the same.”

Clarke forces down the jagged lump and nods.

Lexa lowers her hand back down to her lap. “If you fail,” she says, “your people will forgive you your shortcomings. They will protect you from the brunt of your failure. They will allow you opportunity to correct your errors. You can walk away knowing that when you return, you will be accepted home.”

Clarke knows the words are true. She would be eagerly accepted by her friends and her mother upon her return home. Her return would likely even be celebrated, except maybe by Jasper. No one will blame her for the massacre at the mountain. They will tell her over and over that she had no choice, that she did what needed to be done. Clarke has no doubt about that.

Lexa sighs and shakes her head. “If _I_ fail, my people will turn against me. They will harbor hatred against me for my failure to care for them, as they should. If _I_ walked away, I could never return. If I did, it would be to a most painful death.”

Lexa’s jaw is rigid, her spine straight. Though her eyes are stormy, her expression is still and resolute. She wears her leadership on her body like armor. She wears it in her voice like the rhythm of a war drum. She stands straight beneath the weight of burdens that have long since bent Clarke’s spine with crushing force. Lexa is determined to lead and to lead well, and the respect she has for her position is evident in every inch of her.

Clarke finds it breathtaking and overwhelming and enviable, and sometimes, heartbreaking.

“I do not always have the comfort of slow deliberation,” Lexa tells her. “I make such decisions as the one at Mount Weather swiftly because I must and without question because my sworn duty is to protect _my_ people at whatever cost, even at the cost of my own life. Do not mistake these truths for a lack of caring or for evidence of, as you say, a _frigid_ heart.”

“Lexa, I was just—” Clarke sighs, cutting herself off. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“We are both leaders, Clarke,” Lexa says, holding Clarke’s gaze, “and we have both done unspeakable things for our people. You are conflicted because of those decisions, and you are angry because I do not share your conflict or beg your forgiveness. What you fail to realize is that I have been where you are.”

Clarke sucks in a deep breath and puffs it up from her bottom lip toward her stinging, watering eyes. She doesn’t look away from Lexa despite the storm in those green eyes still tearing her to shreds.

“The weight you feel upon you now,” Lexa continues solemnly, “is one I have felt with every breath for nearly as long as I can remember.” She takes a breath and lets it out in a low sigh. “You have the fortune of forgiveness, Clarke,” she adds in a whisper. “I do not.”

Clarke feels like her heart is cracking, like it will crumble into her gut any second. She had always known Lexa carried the weight of worlds on her shoulders, but hearing these things spoken aloud makes Clarke feel like she is on fire. Her skin prickles uncomfortably and her heart squeezes so hard that it feels like it might burst.

Lexa is right, and Clarke is sick with just how right she is. As much burden as Clarke carries, it can never compare to Lexa’s. She can never fully understand the weight of the decisions Lexa must make, how often she must have to deny herself joy in order to provide for her people. It is a weight that Lexa carries alone, and unlike Clarke, Lexa has never had nor will she ever have an escape from that weight.

She will carry her people upon her back until the moment of her death, and she will carry the things she has done to protect them perhaps even longer.

Clarke swallows thickly and lifts a hand to wipe at the tear escaping down her left cheek. She doesn’t say a word when she scoots a bit closer to Lexa and reaches for the Commander’s hand. Clarke entwines their fingers, closes her eyes, and lets the silence seep back in again.

They remain that way until nightfall when Lexa slowly peels her fingers free and rises to her feet. “Come, Clarke,” she says, reaching to help Clarke stand. “We have only a short ride to Polis.”

Clarke smiles. “Do you always arrive in the middle of the night?”

Lexa smirks and nods. “A daylight arrival requires a celebration,” she informs Clarke. “I save my people the trouble.”

Despite the lightness of the moment, the words only make the ache in Clarke’s heart grow.


	12. Chapter 12

Polis is nearly hidden entirely from view behind towering walls constructed from branches and boards and scrap sheets of metal, all held together in intricate patterns with strips of tree bark made into rope, and various types of wire. The walls stretch out beyond what Clarke can see, reaching out like arms drawn around the city and disappearing into the darkness. She wonders how large Polis actually is, how long it took the Grounders to build this massive barrier around their beloved capital.

Even hidden, Polis is aglow in the night. The light rises up like the halo of a candle flame and hovers over the walls, a silent reminder that there is life inside—bright and pulsing. The tops of buildings are visible in the gleam, like mighty silhouettes punched into the dark and looking out over the forest.

Clarke’s heart races at the sight, thudding against her ribs as their horses slowly approach the large gate. The closer they get, the more she hears. Sounds filter out from the walls and into the night, tinkering and clinking and shuffling. They are quiet sounds, the sounds of the restless perhaps—people milling about while the rest of Polis sleeps. Clarke’s imagination runs wild with the thought, her mind already dancing with images that call out for canvas and charcoal, pens and paints.

Clarke glances to Lexa, who sits like a statue atop her horse as they approach the capital. Her spine is as rigid as her resolve and her expression is impassive. Lexa’s body in this moment is a physical expression of her title, and Clarke feels a ripple of pride radiate through her bones as she rides alongside her. It surprises her, the sensation, but she doesn’t fight it.

Two Grounders stand guard outside the city gate, armor encasing their chests and swords strapped to their backs. They draw their swords at the horses’ approach, but quickly seem to realize who sits atop the center steed and immediately thrust their swords back into their sheaths. They then each drop to a knee and bow their heads.

“ _Heda_ ,” they say in unison, voices full and laced with reverence.

Lexa says something in return that Clarke doesn’t understand and then the guards rise to their feet again while the Commander and Algor both jump down from their horses. Clarke assumes she should do the same and carefully slides down from her own horse. She stands still and quiet beside the beast as Lexa carries on a murmur of a conversation with one of the guards and then addresses Algor. She points to the horses and then along the outer wall, and the next thing Clarke knows, her horse and the others are being led away by the mute Grounder and into the forest along the edge of the city.

“Clarke.”

Clarke turns back to Lexa who simply waves her hand and says, “Come.”

Clarke shuffles quickly forward as the Polis guards move to open the large gate. Her pulse thunders in her ears and her stomach flutters with thrill as the center seam of the gate begins to part and grow wide at the Grounders’ pushing. They open it only enough for Lexa and Clarke to slip inside before pulling it closed again behind them.

Frozen in place, Clarke’s back is still brushing the gate as she gapes at the sight before her. The city is like something out of a dream, or rather, out of one of Clarke’s old history books. Buildings rise and stretch out in front of her, climbing toward the sky in brick and stone. She can see that some are incomplete, pieces missing or bits that have crumbled and fallen but the structures still stand, proud and defiant and practically thrumming with the rich pulse of history.

The city is split around a winding path of packed, hard dirt, lined with soft grass and flowers peeking up and around visible blocks of sunken concrete. Skinny wooden posts stand at intervals along the sides of the dirt path and are connected together with hanging strips of wire. Paper globes hang along the wire and they glow like sunken stars that have burned down to bright embers, sending their light out into the night.

Clarke’s chest feels tight. Her skin tingles with the excitement spilling up from inside, and something about standing here, in this place, feels so incredibly profound. It feels both ancient and new. It feels eternal, and Clarke is alive with the feeling.

Her eyes water as she breathes it all in, and Clarke thinks of Wells. She thinks of the way his eyes always lit up at the images decorating the pages of old, tattered history books and guide texts brought onto the Ark at the world’s end, and the teeming cities, rife with energy, that felt almost alive again in the movies they played in repetition—all pieces and reminders of a life they could only hope to someday return to. Clarke lets out a staggered breath, a whisper of a laugh, as her face splits into a wide smile. Polis dances in her watery eyes and reflects in the few tears that manage to escape, and she is so full in this moment that she thinks she might burst.

“Wow,” she whispers, overwhelmed.

Her gaze is then torn from the city at the barest dusting of the Commander’s fingers over her forearm, and Clarke turns to see Lexa watching her. The green of the Commander’s eyes is nearly translucent in the city’s soft glow, and her expression is one of pride. It is one of wonder, as if she, too, is seeing the city for the first time through Clarke’s eyes. Lexa’s lips pull with a smile as her gaze dances over Clarke’s face.

“Welcome to Polis, Clarke,” she whispers.

Clarke laughs and wipes at her cheeks. “It’s beautiful,” she says and Lexa nods.

“It is.”

Lexa leads Clarke along the winding center path, and Clarke does her best to absorb everything around her. Tents of all sizes and small wooden huts that look hand-carved decorate the spaces between the old stone and brick buildings, and Clarke can just make out the outlines of more intricate details that only daylight will fully reveal. Tarp and cloth covered structures dot the sides of the path in places, and Clarke wonders what the covers hide, until Lexa follows her gaze and speaks.

“Trade stands,” the Commander informs her, and Clarke smiles. Her mind floods with new images of people flitting about in whirlwinds of chatter and work, bartering for handmade goods, cloth, and foods. Her imagination is as active as she dreams Polis might be, and Clarke almost wishes the sun would rise early.

But there is something magical about the night as well, about being newly embraced by a sleeping city that isn’t touched and tainted by all the things Clarke has been running from.

The city is mostly still and mostly quiet, but Clarke sees the shapes of a few stragglers milling in and out of the shadows. She watches them, some stumbling or pressing against the walls to remain steady, and Lexa lets out a soft chuckle beside Clarke.

“Too much drink,” the Commander says, and Clarke smiles at the thought of a people feeling safe and secure enough to lay down their weapons and let down their guard and allow themselves to be uninhibited and irresponsible—unlimited and wild.

They walk along in silence for some time, Clarke absorbing all that she can in the dark, before Lexa steers them to the left and down another long path. The path widens along the way, stretching out and opening like a blooming flower, and Clarke asks, “Where are we going?”

Lexa points straight out ahead of them to the towering silhouette of a large building that Clarke can’t quite make out yet.

“Is that where you live?” Clarke asks, and Lexa nods.

When they draw nearer the building, Clarke can see that it is mostly made of brick. Five stone steps lead up to a long, rectangular porch that serves as the foundation for tall white pillars that stretch up to an overhanging roof. One of the pillars is broken at the bottom but is held steady with large stones stacked to fill the space where the rest of the pillar had once been. It is clear that parts of the building were at one point destroyed, likely during the war, but they have since been reestablished with thick additions of wood and foliage, and despite the patchwork, the house is grand and breathtaking.

Two massive black flags jut out from the two innermost pillars, and there are Grounder men working together to pull them down when Clarke and Lexa step up to the large porch. They halt their work to each drop to a knee and bow their heads, but Lexa quickly says a few words and the men rise to continue with their work.

“What are they doing?” Clarke asks just as the black flags come down only for the Grounders to then begin replacing them with green flags.

Lexa leads Clarke up the porch and to the large front door of the building. “The black flags hang when the Commander is away,” she tells Clarke as she opens the door. “Green hangs when the Commander is in the capital. This informs the people of my presence without having to call for assembly.”

“How did they know to change them?” Clarke asks. “We only just got here and you haven’t spoken to anyone but the guards at the gate.”

Lexa merely smirks and motions for Clarke to enter her home. As soon as Clarke steps inside, she is nearly as stricken as she was at the first sight of Polis. The place is enormous and pristine, and it is practically alive with Grounder culture.

Wooden masks of various sizes line the wall to her left, leading up a grand staircase that has been painted on. Deep reds and browns and greens graffiti the stairs and banister in intricate woven lines and patterns that appear almost tree-like. The design covers the entirety of the banister even as it stretches into the railing of the second floor balcony that reaches clear across the width of the grand entrance hall.

The opposite wall is decorated with weapons—swords and daggers and axes bracketed in place and none of them clean. They wear, as if proud, the deep rust-colored stains of old and dried blood. The sight makes Clarke’s stomach turn, and she quickly averts her gaze.

It lands on Lexa, who is merely watching her take it all in.

Clarke points toward the elaborately painted stairs. “It almost looks like trees.”

Lexa hums and nods. “The forest is a comfort,” she says, and Clarke understands that. The Grounders are people of nature. They cherish it and all that it provides for them. Their home is the wild, even when inside the walls of the city.

“I had it done when I first became Commander,” Lexa tells her. She smiles and it nearly grows to its full potential. “The children of Polis were eager to help.”

“Children?” Clarke asks, gaping. “Children painted that?”

Lexa nods.

“Wow,” Clarke says, truly astonished. “That’s incredible.”

“All children are artists,” Lexa says, and Clarke melts just a touch. There is such affection in Lexa’s eyes as she looks over the work, and it only makes Clarke appreciate its beauty more— _its_ beauty … and Lexa’s.

Clarke glances around the large front room and wonders at the lack of people. She imagined Lexa would have a staff present even in her home, and there were Grounders working with the flags outside, but here, there is no one but them.

“Is it only us here?” Clarke asks.

“No,” Lexa tells her. “There are many who live and work here. They are sleeping.”

“Oh,” Clarke says. “Do they know you’re here?”

Lexa nods. “They would have been informed by now, yes. They know I prefer them not to make a show of my arrival.”

Clarke’s heart swells in her chest at the quiet confession. Despite being the Commander, Lexa hates to burden her people. She prefers them not to fawn and fuss over her or go out of their way for her if it can be at all avoided. Despite the immense power she possesses, Lexa is humble.

“Well, are you going to give me the tour?” Clarke asks, glancing toward the various closed doors she can see on both the first and second floors.

Lexa’s lips curve upward with the hint of a smile but she slowly shakes her head. “Perhaps tomorrow,” she says. “You should rest now.”

“But I’m wide awake,” Clarke argues, because she is. As tired as she had been earlier in the day, and as riddled with exhaustion as she knows her body to be, she hasn’t felt quite this awake and energized in a long time.

Lexa’s smile grows as she shakes her head again and says, “That must be why you fell asleep atop your horse.”

Clarke rolls her eyes but lets out a soft laugh and follows when Lexa moves toward the stairs, waving for her to come along.

The second floor is similarly decorated as what Clarke had seen of the first, hand-carved pieces lining the walls and adorning various small tables and shelves. Lexa leads her down a long hallway that ends with two doors opposite one another, two separate rooms. The Commander tilts her head toward the door on the right and says, “This is where I sleep.”

“Okay,” Clarke says, chewing on her bottom lip. She lets it go with a smacking pop before pointing to the door on the left and asking, “Is that where I sleep?”

Lexa nods and steps forward to open the door to the room, and Clarke stands stunned in the doorway for several long seconds before the Commander nudges her inside.

The room is large and lit by candles. The bed in its center is bigger than any bed Clarke has ever seen. It has four large, obviously hand-carved wooden posts around it that look like twisted tree branches, and thick blankets are piled neatly atop the main structure. Clarke hasn’t got a clue what it is made of but it looks soft even from a distance.

Various wooden carvings decorate the walls, bedside tables, and dressers inside the room, and Clarke marvels at the craftsmanship as she picks one up and runs her hands over its smooth angles. It is a deer, much like the one she had seen on her first day on the ground, though this one thankfully has only one head. There is a separate door to a closet that is stocked with various clothing items that Clarke imagines must belong to Lexa or perhaps one of the people living and working there, and another door just down from it leads to an old washroom. Its porcelain structures are still intact and beautiful to behold.

There is a large glass door on the right side of the room that leads out onto a small balcony, but Clarke can’t see much beyond the reflection of the candles in the panes.

“I will have your clothes brought up to you in the morning,” Lexa says as she stands in the open doorway and watches Clarke move about the room, “and there is additional clothing available for you here as well.”

“Thank you,” Clarke says, and the words come out as barely more than a whisper.

Lexa nods and then quietly says, “Rest, Clarke. Your body is still weak, and Polis will still be waiting for you when you wake.”

Clarke lets a soft smile slip across her lips as she nods and then watches Lexa disappear into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind her.

Once she is alone, Clarke goes about extinguishing the candles in the room until the last flame turns to smoke and she is encased in darkness. She collapses on the soft fur blankets of the large bed and lets out a long sigh. Her body sags on the bed, her exhaustion rushing forward to remind her of all she has endured over the last few weeks. Her mind, though, is awake and racing with all that Polis might have to offer and with the possibility of finding herself again, or perhaps of becoming someone entirely new. Clarke thinks maybe she can disappear here. Maybe she can start to live again.

That tiny ember of hope inside burns brighter, warming her as she finally drifts off to sleep.

* * *

Her heart is in her throat, jagged and pulsing and choking her, _choking her_. Her palm still feels heavy with the ghost of the lever against her flesh, and she cannot bring herself to open the doors. She doesn’t want to go into the room. She doesn’t want to see what has happened, what she has done.

She can’t avoid it forever, though.

When she finally steps inside, the world feels like it comes to a screeching halt and Clarke goes flying off the edge of earth. She can’t breathe. She can’t _breathe_.

There are so many, too many.

Faces, red and blistered, lay motionless atop tables where bodies hunker over in lifeless heaps. Still limbs sprawl outward from torsos that now harbor only dead organs, useless and drying rapidly by the minute. Hands are entangled, held loosely together in death, and Jasper clutches Maya’s body like his warmth can somehow bring her back to life.

Clarke’s eyes burn with the sight, burn like their flesh, burn like her soul.

Everyone is dead—allies and friends and children. Innocents.

Everyone is dead, and Clarke is responsible.

Bile bubbles in her gut and then screams up the length of her esophagus until it sours the back of her tongue, and she chokes on it as heavily as she chokes on her heart. The blood on her hands feels like it has seeped inside and is filling her up, inch by inch. She thinks she might drown in it.

There is no escaping this.

There is no taking this back.

Everyone is dead.

“Clarke.”

Clarke jerks awake, sucking in a hard gasp as she thrashes and fights against whatever is holding tightly to her arms.

“Clarke.”

Clarke jerks again, the voice barely breaking through the haze in her mind. She is still seeing bodies and bodies and _bodies_.

“Clarke, listen to my voice.”

Clarke blinks rapidly, a hard sob wrenching free from her throat, and she sucks in another sharp breath. Her vision clears just enough for the room to swim into focus, its shadows taming as she slowly pulls free from sleep and into reality.

“Breathe, Clarke.”

Clarke does. She draws in another long, deep breath and lets it out in a sob as Lexa’s face finally snaps into focus, and Clarke is safe. She is safe and in Polis, and Lexa is holding tightly to her wrists and speaking quietly but firmly to her. She is safe.

“Lexa,” she whispers, broken and ragged.

Lexa releases one of her wrists to press a warm palm to Clarke’s soaked cheek, and Clarke leans into the touch as fresh tears spill through and over Lexa’s fingers.

“The bodies,” Clarke cries, unable to hold it in, unable to push it down. Here, in the dark, she is cracked wide open and vulnerable, and she feels so broken that she thinks she might never be able to be pieced back together.

She grips Lexa’s forearm, needing to hold onto something, needing to feel grounded. “The bodies,” she chokes out again. “So many.”

Lexa shushes her and strokes her thumb under Clarke’s eye, catching her tears. “Only a dream,” she whispers, and Clarke shakes her head.

It wasn’t only a dream. It was a memory.

“It was real,” she croaks, and Lexa nods in the dark.

“I know,” she whispers, “but it is the past, and you are here now.”

Clarke cries into Lexa’s hand for what feels like hours but Lexa never once moves. She says nothing and seems content to simply sit at Clarke’s side, one hand cupped around her cheek and the other wrapped gently around her forearm, thumb stroking against the soft skin of Clarke’s wrist. She waits for Clarke to breathe free and clean again, waits for her eyes to dry.

When Clarke slowly lets go of Lexa’s arm and presses it to the bed to push herself up into a sitting position, Lexa moves back to give her space but doesn’t go far. Clarke takes another long deep breath and wipes her cheeks clean. Her head throbs and her eyes feel itchy and dry after so much crying, and her chest still aches with the vivid memory that had invaded her sleep.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” Clarke rasps after a long silence.

Lexa sighs. “I have them as well.”

“The nightmares?” Clarke whispers. She can see Lexa’s face silhouetted in the moonlight streaming through the balcony door and the dip of her head as she nods. “Oh.”

Clarke’s chest aches harder, tightening painfully at the thought of all that might haunt Lexa’s dreams. She knows only bits and pieces of the trials Lexa has endured in her life, but those bits and pieces are enough to make Clarke shiver at the thought.

Lexa looks tired, though still beautiful in the moonlight, and Clarke wants to relieve her of this bother. She wants to send her back to her room, back to a hopefully peaceful sleep, but Clarke’s stomach is tight and her lip is trembling, and she is afraid to close her eyes again.

“Lexa,” she whispers, shaky and ashamed, but before she can say anything else, she sees Lexa nod.

“Close your eyes, Clarke,” Lexa says, squeezing Clarke’s knee through the blankets. “I will be here.”

Clarke thinks maybe she shouldn’t be so comforted by those words, by that simple truth, but in the quiet and in the dark, she can’t bring herself to care.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of the support. Your kudos and comments mean so much to me. I hope you all enjoy this chapter! XO-Chrmdpoet

Sunlight streams in through the glass panes of the balcony door and stings across Clarke’s closed eyes, and red spots dot the backs of her eyelids until she begrudgingly begins to blink them open. She adjusts slowly to the sudden brightness, and it takes a moment for her to remember where she is, but when she does, a warm feeling settles in Clarke’s chest. She pushes up into a sitting position, fur-lined blankets pooling around her waist, and her eyes are drawn to the person curled up in a cushioned chair at the side of her bed.

Clarke’s stomach coils at the sight. Lexa stayed with her the entire night, scrunched into a chair just because Clarke had a nightmare, just because she was afraid to be alone. Clarke’s heart tightens and pulsates almost painfully like it is trapped inside a hard fist and desperate to escape. Her throat grows dry and she swallows down the saliva in her mouth to try to soothe it as her gaze dances over Lexa’s sleeping form.

The Commander is wearing less clothing than Clarke has ever seen her wear, clad only in tight gray shorts that wrap around muscular thighs and end midway to her knees and a dingy white quarter-sleeved shirt that is too large for her body. It hangs loosely off one shoulder, revealing a stretch of skin decorated with scars and ink.

Lexa’s wild hair is frizzy but held in place at the nape of her neck, so that her face is clear and visible in the sunlight—soft, lineless, peaceful. She is small in this moment, rolled into a tender ball that makes Clarke’s bones feel liquid. Lexa looks every bit her age in slumber, every bit as young as Clarke even if her body harbors a millennia-old soul, and Clarke cannot tear her eyes away.

She takes in as much as she can, gaze drifting down the slopes of Lexa’s long bare legs. They are hairy like Clarke’s, though smoother and darker, and Clarke thinks that the Grounders must not hassle themselves with hair removal. It makes her feel better about her own. Lexa’s legs are tucked up against her chest, one arm wrapped around them and the other arm folded under her cheek as she leans against the right side of the chair back. Her small bare feet are stacked, right over left, and her toes are curled in and under. Clarke imagines they must be frigid after a night uncovered. It makes her feel guilty for having woken Lexa in the first place, for needing her presence.

Clarke pulls at one of the furs on her bed and scoots to the edge. She leans over and carefully drapes the blanket over Lexa’s body, taking care to tuck the edges up under the Commander’s feet. Her knuckles brush soft skin and it is cool to the touch, just as she expected. When she pulls back, she is startled to see that Lexa’s eyes are now open and locked onto her.

Clarke expects her to instantly uncoil, to stretch out and sit up, make herself long and rigid and less human, but she doesn’t. She remains curled in a ball like she is not quite fully awake or is not quite _ready_ to be fully awake, and she stares at Clarke through green eyes that sparkle in the morning light.

“You stayed,” Clarke whispers, voice still raspy from sleep.

Lexa only nods, her chin brushing against the tops of her knees.

Clarke picks at the fur of the remaining blankets on top of her and chews at the inside of her bottom lip. “You didn’t have to,” she says.

Lexa’s gaze feels like it is digging beneath Clarke’s skin, trying to burrow in and find a home somewhere inside. Her voice is scratchy when she speaks. “I said I would.”

“You slept in a chair,” Clarke rasps out in a soft chuckle, “and your feet are freezing.”

“Only yesterday, we slept on the ground,” Lexa replies, her lips tilting up in a smile. “This chair is a luxury, and you have covered me. I will warm quickly.”

Clarke nods her head toward the blankets she continues to pick at. “You could’ve gotten in.”

“I would never invite myself into your bed, Clarke,” Lexa says firmly, and something tugs in Clarke’s chest. There is a fire in Lexa’s eyes as she says the words—a hot sort of promise that seems to blaze up from her soul. The words are heavy with a profound respect that Clarke _feels_ as much as she hears.

Clarke thinks of the kiss they shared in Lexa’s tent, the way the Commander had respectfully stepped back and nodded her acceptance when Clarke informed her she wasn’t ready, and her heart swells with appreciation. Lexa accepts that Clarke needs time and space, that she is struggling with things she cannot put to words and that some of those things strictly revolve around Lexa.

Clarke takes a deep breath and scoots over an inch or two. She wants to offer Lexa some kind of comfort, some measure of warmth and gratitude. Her pulse thuds in her neck as she throws back the blankets and whispers, “You’re invited.”

Lexa visibly stiffens at the invitation and Clarke’s heart shoots up into her throat. They both remain frozen in place until Lexa’s gaze shifts down from Clarke’s eyes to slither over the now-exposed parts of her body, and the Commander’s brows furrow.

“Clarke,” Lexa says, lips pursing for a moment, “is it a custom of the Sky People to sleep this way?”

Clarke is confused by the question until she glances down at herself. She is still fully dressed in Lexa’s clothes from the day before. Her gun is still holstered at her hip and Lexa’s dagger is still looped through the cuff on her thigh. Her eyes widen at the realization, and Clarke is surprised she hasn’t managed to slice off a chunk of her own thigh by accident. Her left boot is still on her foot while the other is off and lies under the blankets near her leg. Her bracers have both been removed from her forearms. One of them is thrown across the bedside table, and Clarke leans over to see the other on the floor.

She doesn’t remember ever making any attempts to undress. In fact, now that Clarke thinks about it, she doesn’t even remember falling asleep. All she remembers is collapsing on top of the blankets and thinking that she was far too awake to fall asleep. That, apparently, did not last long, and she must have made some strange haphazard attempt at undressing in her sleep.

Clarke’s neck and cheeks flush with heat but when she looks back up at Lexa and sees the Commander still staring at her, utterly perplexed, something bubbles up from deep inside and Clarke explodes with laughter. It jumps through her lips like it is desperate to be free, and Clarke lets it overwhelm her entirely.

Lexa stares at her, confused, for only a moment before her lips spread into a full and startlingly beautiful smile. Clarke’s loud bark of laughter pulls a raspy chuckle from the Commander’s lips, and Lexa shakes her head.

Clarke laughs like it is the first and last burst of joy this life has or will ever offer and it feels so incredibly good that it makes her chest ache and her eyes water. When she sucks in a laughing gasp that unexpectedly morphs into the choking gurgle of a sob, she slaps a hand over her mouth and feels hot tears spill over her fingers.

Her body shakes with the simultaneous effects of laughing and crying, and Clarke clenches her eyes closed and breathes hard against the palm of her hand. When she feels the bed dip a moment later, she opens her eyes to see Lexa right in front of her, green eyes wide but knowing. She doesn’t touch Clarke but she sits close, close enough that Clarke can feel the heat of her breath and body.

“Clarke,” Lexa whispers, and Clarke never realized how much a name could sound like understanding until this moment.

Clarke sucks in a shuddering breath and lets it out in a staggered sigh. “I’m a mess,” she croaks through her fingers, and every ounce of her laughter is gone. All that is left behind are the remnants of a fleeting moment of joy, stirring around in her chest like pieces of the person she thinks she might have been before all of this, before the ground, before Mount Weather.

Bits and pieces of her dream from the night before flicker through her mind, and the tightening in her chest only increases. New tears slip out, and Clarke wonders when that will stop—the urge to cry, the inability to stop. She wonders if it _ever_ will at all.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” she whispers, and she doesn’t know why she feels like she can be so vulnerable with Lexa, like she doesn’t have to hide the darkness swimming around inside her, like she _can’t_ hide it. She thinks maybe that should mean something or maybe it already does. Maybe it always has.

Lexa holds her gaze, soft and promising, and quietly murmurs, “You will learn again.”

She says it like she is certain, like she just _knows_ , and Clarke wants more than anything to believe her.

They sit together in silence, only the sounds of Clarke’s gentle gasping filtering through the air, until Clarke wipes at her cheeks, nods her head, and says, “Okay.”

Lexa nods in return and lets the touch of a smile tug at her lips.

The silence filters back in again and stays for what feels like hours. Clarke finds it strange and comforting how it puts her at ease, just sitting inside a quiet moment with Lexa, and she is content to stay there but she doesn’t know if Lexa is. She doesn’t want to impede on any plans the Commander may have made for the day, and Lexa has already spent quite enough time catering to Clarke’s needs.

Clarke blushes as she clears her throat and asks, “So, uh, what now?”

Lexa smiles and stands from the bed. “Now we eat,” she says, and almost as soon as the words are out, Clarke’s stomach growls hard and loud.

They both let out a soft laugh and Clarke presses a hand to her stomach. “Sounds like my stomach approves of that plan.”

“Yes,” Lexa agrees and then moves toward the door of Clarke’s room, pointing toward the large closet as she goes. “There is clothing available for you if you would like to change.” She leans against the door frame as she says, “Come to my room when you are ready.”

Clarke nods and watches Lexa turn to leave. Something surges up inside her when the Commander’s back turns, and Clarke calls out to her before she can stop herself.

“Lexa, I—” She hesitates, unsure of what exactly she wants to say, but when Lexa turns back to face her, eyes soft and kind, the words come up easily.

“Yes, Clarke?”

Clarke sighs and grips one of her fur blankets tightly between her fingers. Her voice never once wavers when she says, “I don’t hate you.”

Lexa’s lips part and her eyes widen slightly. She seems almost speechless for a moment before she clears her throat and in a barely audible whisper says, “I know.”

Clarke thinks maybe Lexa knew all along.

* * *

Clarke takes her time digging through the various items in the bathroom. When she finds some products that she’s fairly certain are like the Grounder version of pads, she nearly clutches the damned things to her chest. It had been one of the first miniature crises she and the other girls on the drop ship had had after coming to the ground. Four days in, Clarke was pulled to the side by a fifteen-year-old delinquent and asked what she thought the girl should do about getting her period. Clarke hadn’t even thought about it before then, but as soon as the girl said the words, her stomach sunk with dread.

There hadn’t been much they _could_ do about it, and the Ark certainly hadn’t helped them out by stocking the drop ship with feminine care products. They had ended up creating their own makeshift versions of pads, stripped and folded cloth from their clothes or the clothes of the dead and anchored to a broad leaf that kept the cloth from bunching up. It was the best they could manage, but it certainly had not been ideal.

She also finds a toothbrush and has to stop herself from shouting her excitement. The body of the brush is carved out of wood, and she isn’t sure what the bristles are made of. They are a little coarser than what she is used to, but they are better than nothing.

Beside the toothbrush is a little wooden container that has a thick sort of cream inside it. It is light green in color and when Clarke brings it to her nose, she smells mint. She clutches the small container of homemade toothpaste like it is a precious gift and nearly squeals like a child. She feels like she is legitimately having a love affair with this bathroom right now.

There is a large barrel in the corner of the bathroom that has a spigot attached to it, and Clarke assumes it is filled with fresh water. She takes the cup that sits on the sink and holds it at the opening of the spigot before turning over the handle and watching the cup fill quickly with water. She tightens the spigot closed again and then heads back to the sink to brush her teeth.

She brushes until her gums hurt but she doesn’t care, and when she rinses out her mouth, Clarke thinks she has never felt so clean in her life. She just wants to walk around and breathe on people so they can smell how perfectly fresh her breath is, but then that probably wouldn’t win her any points with the people of Polis. Breathing on people as a way of greeting would probably only earn her a lot of quick goodbyes.

Once she is finished in the bathroom, Clarke moves to the closet and picks through all the different clothing items. They obviously aren’t sized, so she hasn’t got a clue which pieces will fit and which won’t. She tries a few different pieces, and one pair of pants is too small while a couple different shirts fit her a bit too loosely. She keeps at it though. There are so many pieces to choose from, so she is bound to find likely several that will fit her just right.

She eventually settles on a pair of black pants that fit her quite snugly but aren’t too tight. They have a long strip that wraps around the waist portion and hangs loosely down to her thighs. It almost makes it look like she is wearing a skirt over her pants, and Clarke thinks it looks cute so she sticks with the choice. She pairs the pants with a whitish-gray sleeveless top that is ribbed on one side and frayed around the neckline.

There is an actual full-length mirror in the closet, which surprises Clarke, but she takes advantage of it. She stares at her reflection for a long time, taking in the new scars on her face, one particularly deep one over the bridge of her nose, and the dark lines that are just starting to fade from under her eyes. She is visibly skinnier and wan in her reflection, and Clarke knows it is going to take a good amount of time for her to look healthy again.

Her hair is ratty but clean. She runs her fingers through it, snagging on tangles, until they slide through without catching. Clarke wonders if Lexa has a hair tie of some kind that she can borrow, or maybe she could have her hair braided like the Grounders’ hair.

Clarke doesn’t allow herself more than a glance into her reflection’s haunted eyes. She can’t stand to see the ghosts swimming there.

Once she is dressed, Clarke pulls on her boots and then stares at her weapons on the bedside table. She considers strapping them on but then changes her mind. She doesn’t want to be that person anymore, armed and dangerous, even if for only a little while. She just wants to be free.

She doesn’t once miss the weight of her gun when she walks away from it.

* * *

Clarke stands outside Lexa’s bedroom door and shifts from foot to foot as she knocks a few times. For some reason, she feels nervous though she is also a bit excited. She is curious to see what Lexa’s room looks like—if it is just as plain as the private quarters of her camp tent or if it has personal touches that are uniquely Lexa.

“Enter,” she hears a moment later and Clarke takes a breath before turning the knob and poking her head in.

“Hey,” she says, chewing her bottom lip.

“Clarke,” Lexa says, looking up from a small round table near a large glass door that Clarke can see leads to a balcony much like the one in her own room. A soft smile touches Lexa’s lips as she motions for Clarke to come inside.

Clarke steps fully inside before shutting the door behind her, and once she is in, Clarke can’t do much more than gape. She takes it all in in one quick glance and then slows down and looks from space to space, piece to piece. There is a large bookshelf to her left with stacks of old, tattered books adorning its shelves along with small wooden sculptures and rolls of paper that Clarke imagines are probably maps. The bed sits against the far wall, centered between the two side walls, and it is just as enormous as the bed in Clarke’s room, if not a bit bigger. It is covered in fur blankets, and the large hand-carved wooden posts that surround it have animal skins hanging from them. Clarke wonders if Lexa killed and skinned those animals herself.

Various small tables and shelves throughout the room hold little wooden carvings of both people and animals, and some have pieces of handcrafted jewelry hanging from them. The wall to Clarke’s right is decorated with an array of weapons, everything from swords to axes to bows, and Clarke is surprised to see that there are even a few long leather whips. Some of the weapons are pristine while others are stained with old blood.

One section of the wall is covered in a neat display of daggers, all stuck point-deep into the wall and each holding a singular piece of yellowed paper in place. Clarke moves a bit closer so she can see the papers, and she notices that each one features a drawn depiction of a portion of a map as well as a number scratched onto the paper in black ink. There have to be at least twenty-five daggers here, if not a bit more, and Clarke wonders what this display represents.

“My victories,” Lexa says from behind her as if reading her mind, and Clarke startles. She had nearly forgotten that she was not alone in the room.

Clarke turns to look at Lexa, who still sits at the small round table by the balcony door. She is relaxed, her braided and wild hair flowing over her shoulder and her face serene as she watches Clarke move around her room. “These?” Clarke asks, pointing toward the dagger-pinned map pieces.

Lexa nods. “Each is a battle that I have won since I became Commander.”

“Wow,” Clarke whispers as she turns to look back at them. Her gaze is drawn to the scratched black numbers again and she asks, “What about these numbers?”

“Losses,” Lexa says quietly, and Clarke’s stomach lurches. The numbers represent the amount of Lexa’s people who died in each battle. Though most of the numbers are fairly small, Clarke still feels a pang in her chest.

She lets out a sigh and forces herself away from the display, and then carries on shuffling around Lexa’s room, taking it all in. She can see that there is a full closet of clothing and a luxurious bathroom off to the side of the room, much like in her own room. There are little trinkets everywhere, hanging from carvings or tacked to the walls or lining the tables, and Clarke is amazed at how many things Lexa has. She lets her fingers graze over one particularly breathtaking piece—a long beaded necklace with a light green stone dangling from its center—that rests on the small table right beside Lexa’s bed.

“You have a lot of jewelry,” Clarke says. “I never took you for the jewelry type.”

“They are mostly gifts from my people,” Lexa replies.

“And this one?” Clarke asks, holding up the necklace. “It’s beautiful.”

Lexa stares at the piece for a long moment before swallowing thickly and nodding. “Costia,” she says, and her voice is firm though Clarke can hear the ache in it.

“This was hers?” Clarke asks, holding Lexa’s haunted gaze.

Lexa shakes her head gently. “It is mine,” she says. “Costia made it.”

“Oh.” Clarke swallows down the lump in her throat and thumbs over the green stone on the necklace. “It’s the same color as your eyes,” she murmurs without really thinking, but when she looks back up, Lexa is staring at her with such tenderness that it nearly steals Clarke’s breath.

“Yes,” she whispers.

Nothing more is said of the necklace and Clarke carefully places it back on the bedside table before making her way over to the small round table and slipping into the seat across from the Commander. It is only then that Clarke realizes that the table is covered in food, and she feels bad for making Lexa wait.

“Sorry,” she mutters but Lexa merely shakes her head.

“Do you like it?”

“Your room?” Clarke asks, looking up at the woman across from her.

Lexa lets a small smile slip across her lips as she nods.

“Yeah, I do,” Clarke tells her. “It’s a lot more personal than your tents that I’ve been in.” She ducks her head a bit, not meeting Lexa’s eyes when she adds, “I like seeing all this stuff. It’s like getting to see _you_ , you know, instead of the Commander.”

Lexa hums out a quiet sound of understanding before motioning for Clarke to eat. “Did you have a room like this in the sky?” she asks as she reaches for a piece of fruit.

Clarke chuckles around the berries she is chewing before swallowing and shaking her head. “Not like this, no,” she answers. “I had a pretty small room in my family’s quarters and then I had a prison cell in solitary, so nothing fancy. I did have a lot of drawings though. I love to draw. My cell in solitary was covered in drawings of the ground, of what I imagined it would look like from what I had seen in pictures and movies.”

“Is it as you imagined?” Lexa asks, and Clarke shakes her head.

“It’s even more beautiful,” she says. “Everything is so green and _alive_ , but it’s also a lot more terrifying than I thought it would be.”

Lexa stares at her for a long moment before saying, “I will have supplies sent up to your room.”

“What?” Clarke blurts. “Drawing supplies? That … that would actually be amazing but you don’t have to do that, Lexa. You’ve already done so much for me.”

Lexa waves a dismissive hand and says, “And you have done much for me, Clarke.” Clarke stills at the words and Lexa holds her gaze.

An image of frail Grounders slipping out of the front door of the Mount Weather stronghold flashes briefly through Clarke’s mind, and bile shoots up her throat. She chokes it down and sucks in a sharp breath through her nose. She wonders if Mount Weather will ever let her live, or if she is condemned forever to its haunting much like she condemned its people to death.

The Commander lowers her voice to a whisper. “It is settled.”

Clarke doesn’t argue but simply nods and murmurs, “Thank you.”

They eat in tense silence for a long while before Lexa clears her throat and asks, “Why were you imprisoned by your people?"

“Everyone who came down in the drop ship was a prisoner,” Clarke tells her, letting out a long sigh. “On the Ark, every minor infraction was considered a capital offense and offenders were sentenced to death by flotation.” At Lexa’s confused look, Clarke explains, “They’re basically thrust out into space without a tether, so they just float away, and they have no protective gear so there is no oxygen to keep them alive.”

Lexa glances down toward the table, and Clarke thinks she looks visibly uncomfortable. It surprises her given the Grounders’ own methods of punishment, but she imagines each person’s version of barbarism is different. She, herself, had always considered the Ark’s laws rather barbaric.

“Except for the minors,” Clarke continues. “If you were under the age of eighteen, you couldn’t be floated, so they just imprisoned all of us. _I_ didn’t actually commit a crime. My dad found a problem with the oxygen supply on the Ark and he wanted to tell everyone, but they were afraid the people would panic, so they floated him and they locked me up to keep his secret. That’s why I was in solitary.”

Her voice cracks only once when she speaks of her father, but Clarke quickly swallows down the ache in her throat and reaches for a strip of meat. She takes a bite and tries to avoid Lexa’s burning gaze that she can feel like a laser searing into the side of her face as she stares out the balcony door.

“I am sorry about your father,” Lexa says after a long silence, and Clarke turns to meet her gaze.

“So am I,” she whispers. “I wish he could have come to the ground. He would have loved it. He always loved my drawings.”

Clarke’s chest feels tight and she wants to change the subject. She wants to flee. She puts her strip of meat down and wipes at her mouth with the cloth napkin next to her wooden plate before pushing up out of her chair. She walks around the table and around Lexa before unlatching the balcony door and pulling it open just enough that she can slip through but not enough for it to hit Lexa’s chair.

As soon as Clarke steps out onto the balcony, a cool breeze blows over her face and she takes a deep, cleansing breath. Her heart calms as she leans against the balcony railing, hands gripped tightly around it, and she tries to let go of the ache. The air is lightly tinged with a hint of saltwater, and Clarke wonders if they are close to the ocean. She has always wanted to see the ocean. She had of course seen earth’s oceans from space, blue and bright, but it wasn’t the same as in pictures and movies.

She wants to stand with her toes in the sand, a cold wave pushing up and over her feet, rocking against her ankles. She wants to stare out into the vast blue expanse and feel like she is looking at the physical manifestation of forever. She wants to feel that rush, even just once. Clarke wonders if Lexa might take her, and for the first time, she doesn’t question why she wants Lexa to be the one to do so.

Clarke sees nothing but trees as the view from Lexa’s balcony is rife with little more than forest, but she knows there is much waiting to be explored in Polis. She can hear the sounds of the city, the sounds of chatter and even of music, and Clarke feels a spark of excitement ignite in her chest.

When she turns to go back inside, she is surprised to find Lexa on the balcony with her. Clarke’s gaze trails down the Commander’s form almost as if on instinct, and she feels her heart thud heavily beneath her ribs.

The Commander stands only a foot away, leaning against the balcony door and watching Clarke. The deep forest green of her shirt intensifies the color of her eyes in the sunlight, and Clarke feels captured by her. Her stomach flips pleasantly when her gaze trails down to see the front of Lexa’s thin, flowing shirt tucked into black pants that appear to be partially made of leather and look as if they have been painted onto Lexa’s legs. The back of her shirt hangs loosely over her backside, and Clarke realizes that this is the most casual clothing she has ever seen Lexa wear, other than the pajamas she had witnessed earlier. The knee-high black boots Lexa wears serve to make her already mile-long legs look even longer, and Clarke feels like her throat has suddenly become a desert.

Lexa clears her throat, and Clarke’s gaze shoots back up to green eyes. She blushes as Lexa smirks and asks, “Are you ready to see Polis in the light, Clarke?”

Clarke’s lips split into a smile that feels like the beginning of something healing and new and she nods. “I’m ready.”


	14. Chapter 14

Polis is lively and loud, bounding out around her in every direction, and Clarke is overwhelmed by all there is to see and absorb. The stretch of the city leading out from Lexa’s home and toward the gate where she and Clarke had entered the night before makes up the city’s market strip, and Clarke is sucked quickly into the rhythm of its hustle and bustle. She is ignited by the richness of life making the air around them hot and vibrant and electric.

Clarke and Lexa barely manage a few steps along the winding dirt path, though, before the Commander’s presence draws a crowd of its own. A wave of movement ripples through the crowd as people turn in their direction, and Clarke nearly loses her breath at the sight of dozens upon dozens of people dropping to their knees in unison or dipping into reverent bows before Lexa. Clarke glances to the woman beside her, and her heart races at the way Lexa’s eyes grow deep and soft despite the rigid line of her jaw and the proud stiffening of her spine.

Lexa tilts her head forward in one graceful nod and the people of Polis rise again and burst into a wild chorus of excited chatter.

Clarke steps aside, slightly uncomfortable with the sudden onslaught of attention, but she doesn’t stray far. She watches, instead, as people push forward toward their Commander, eager to speak with her and touch her. Clarke is amazed by the patience Lexa exhibits, pressing her palms against each of the hands reaching out to her, and the smile that touches her lips is genuine, soulful. Clarke sees it mirrored on each of the faces in Lexa’s adoring crowd.

They _love_ her.

Clarke can see it, that love. It is obvious that it is not merely respect for Lexa’s title, though that is certainly present as well. It is an authentic love, visible in the way their eyes light up or even water when Lexa reaches out to grasp their hands or speak quietly with them, like she is a blessing they never imagined themselves worthy of. Seeing such adoration in these people tugs at something deep within Clarke and she feels her throat tightening and drying, her eyes stinging.

Lexa isn’t merely their Commander. She is their safety, their security. She is their hope.

They call out to her, some in Trigedasleng and some in English, and Lexa responds to each in kind.

“Commander,” an older gray-haired woman calls, her voice soft but desperate. “Commander, please.” She shuffles through the crowd, drawing closer to Lexa, and extends a shaky hand over the heads of people still stacked in front of her.

Clarke watches as Lexa gently weaves through the crowd, having heard and seen the older woman. The people do their best to shift out of the Commander’s way so that it doesn’t take her long to reach her target, and Lexa grasps the woman’s hand once she is close enough. Clarke’s heart clenches when Lexa’s thumb rubs softly across the tops of the woman’s knuckles.

The woman smiles though her eyes remain wide and desperate, and she presses her other hand atop Lexa’s. “Commander, please,” she says again, quieter, and Clarke steps a bit closer, straining to hear. “What of the mountain?”

Clarke’s stomach instantly drops at the words and then sends a rush of burning bile searing up the length of her throat. The reality of how little time has passed since the massacre at Mount Weather hits her like a firm fist to the gut, and Clarke nearly buckles over. These people don’t know, or perhaps they know only rumors—whispers of a victory that has yet to be confirmed by their beloved Commander who has only just returned from war. Clarke doesn’t know if she can be here for this, for whatever words will leave Lexa’s lips.

“My son,” the gray-haired woman says. “Pran. My son. He was captured.”

Lexa closes her eyes for a moment as if trying to recall something, and Clarke briefly wonders if Lexa has actually gone to the extreme care of learning the names of those rescued from the mountain or if she perhaps simply recalls this particular name. The mere thought makes her ache.

A small smile presses at Lexa’s lips as she opens her eyes again and nods. “Your son heals,” she assures. “He is free.”

The woman’s eyes brim with tears as she brings one hand to her mouth, trembling fingers wrapping over a blinding smile, and lets a quiet sob of relief escape her. Clarke’s eyes sting harder as she watches the interaction; watches Lexa reach out to squeeze the woman’s shoulder in further reassurance. The Commander then turns around and raises a hand high into the air.

“People of Polis,” she calls loudly, voice firm and authoritative, and a hush falls over the surrounding crowd.

When the silence envelops them, Lexa lowers her hand and looks from face to face before finding Clarke again in the crowd and locking onto her. She holds Clarke’s gaze as she steps through the short distance between them and lands at her side. Clarke’s entire body tenses as she suddenly feels the full weight of the crowd’s stares upon her, and this isn’t what she wanted.

She wanted to disappear. She wanted to slip into Polis and become just another face in a teeming city of people merely trying to live their lives. She wanted the city to help her forget, even if only for a short while.

A flash of anger sparks in her chest despite Clarke knowing that this couldn’t have been and can’t be helped. The people of Polis deserve to know of the war’s outcome, of the fates of their loved ones once thought to be lost to the mountain forever. They deserve the truth, and Clarke is so heavily tangled up in that truth that Lexa simply cannot untie her from its clutches, but that does not change the fact that Clarke wishes such a thing possible. She wishes she could find some sort of liberation inside the walls of Polis, wishes Lexa could give her that, but she knows that no matter where they go or what they wish, they are who they are and there is no such thing as disappearing for those who lead.

They bear their burdens so their people don’t have to, and sometimes those burdens are victories. Even a win can weigh heavily on the heart. Clarke can taste that truth on her tongue, bitter and thick. She can feel it in her bones, heavy and hard. She thinks neither the taste nor the weight will ever leave her.

“The Sky People have done us a great service,” Lexa announces and a few murmurs sound throughout the crowd as the people stare between their Commander and Clarke. “They have secured a victory we have long sought.” Lexa then takes a deep breath, raises her voice a bit, and says, “Mount Weather has fallen.”

A chorus of gasps echoes throughout the crowd, and Clarke’s heart races, and then the people of Polis completely and utterly erupt. They cheer and embrace, and Clarke’s head spins dizzily. Her skin feels too hot and her breaths too shallow. The haunting images that have tormented her for days now flash briefly and rapidly through her mind like searing streaks of lightning, and her stomach rolls. Her knees tremble, and Clarke stiffens her legs to hold herself upright. She clenches her hands into fists and does her best to stay calm, but this all just feels like too much, too soon.

People are cheering and people are dying. Bodies embrace and bodies burn. The haunting merges into her current reality and Clarke can’t breathe. She can’t breathe and when, _when_ , will this stop?

“Our people have been freed and shall soon return home,” Lexa continues over the roar of the crowd, calling them to quiet again, and Clarke hears everything as if there are hands cupped over her ears. “Clarke of the Sky People joins us in Polis.”

Clarke wonders how it is that even in her haze she can still feel their eyes on her—their eyes and Lexa’s.

“Treat her as one of our own,” Lexa orders. “We owe her our gratitude.”

Clarke barely registers the next moments. Her chest feels too tight, like it might explode any minute and she still can’t breathe. She has never been one to panic, always cool-headed and steady even under pressure, and even now she somehow manages to keep her composure, but Clarke has never felt so unlike herself before. The feeling has tortured her for days now, the feeling of being broken and helpless, strange and uncomfortable in her own skin.

People are cheering, and all she hears are screams. All she hears are choking gasps for air. All she hears are Jasper’s accusations. All she hears is Maya’s final breath. All she hears is death and death and _death_ , and there are ghosts in her eyes and inside her fists and she can’t let them go.

Lexa says something more to the gathered crowd and the people slowly began to separate and scamper off in different directions. As they disperse, Clarke feels a hand press into the space between her shoulder blades to steady her, and then Lexa is steering her away from the bustling market and toward a small shadowed and deserted alley between two large stone buildings.

“Breathe, Clarke,” she whispers once they are within the shadows and well out of sight, and Clarke does as she is told. She sucks in a sharp breath that stabs at the insides of her lungs and scrapes painfully even as it exits. She takes another, and it stings briefly but offers her a greater measure of relief, and then another. Several breaths later, the ache in her chest and the haze in her head clear so that her shoulders slump around Lexa’s firm hand and her body relaxes.

When she feels steady again, Clarke shrugs away from Lexa’s touch. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she says. “You shouldn’t have told them it was me.”

“It _was_ you,” Lexa tells her. “I will not take credit for a victory that your people provided, and you need this.”

“What?” Clarke snaps. “I need _what_ , Lexa? People staring at me? Whispering about me?”

“ _Thanking_ you,” Lexa whispers, expression softening as she takes a step toward Clarke. “You need to see what you have done, Clarke.”

Clarke’s voice cracks when she presses a hand to her chest and says, “I know what I’ve done. I see it every time I close my eyes.”

“I am not asking you to close your eyes, Clarke,” Lexa tells her, shaking her head. “I am asking you to open them.”

Clarke stares at her, lips trembling and bones quaking beneath her flesh. “What does that mean?” she whispers, and Lexa takes another step toward her.

The distance between them slips away, the air heating and sparking with a tension that has always been only theirs, and Clarke feels a familiar tug deep inside her. It pulls her closer, sends all her hidden, quiet spaces spiraling toward Lexa like they were never solely Clarke’s to begin with, and she presses into the palm of Lexa’s hand as it cups around her cheek. She is helpless to stop it, the caving. Her body is as broken as her once iron will, and Lexa seems to be the only one capable of holding her pieces together anymore, no matter how deeply Clarke so often tries to deny it. Despite everything, their shared shadows have somehow become shelter, and Clarke wants to burrow in as much as she wants to burn it down. Or maybe she never wanted to burn it down at all.

She is done with destruction.

“It means,” Lexa murmurs, the heat of her body burning through Clarke’s clothes as they press close in the shadows of this deserted alley, their chests just barely brushing, “that you see _only_ the horror, but even horror can yield happiness.”

Clarke lets out a quiet sigh as Lexa’s thumb swipes through a tear on her cheek and the anger curling through her system leaks rapidly out of her body. She holds Lexa’s gaze as she leans into her palm and whispers, “Show me.”

Lexa nods and lets her hand slip down from Clarke’s cheek. It barely brushes the length of Clarke’s arm before Lexa’s fingers slip around Clarke’s wrist. The Commander takes several steps backward and tugs gently at Clarke’s wrist, pulling her along.

Clarke shuffles forward until they reach the opening of the alley and Lexa turns and tilts her head toward the market. “Come and see Polis, Clarke.”

Sighing, Clarke shakes her head. Her enthusiasm has crumbled. “I see it.”

“No,” Lexa tells her firmly. “You have seen nothing.” She raises her hand and presses her index finger to Clarke’s temple. “You have been in here,” she says and then she gently nudges Clarke forward and into the bright light of morning again.

Lexa walks beside her as they head toward the packed road and when they slip into the teeming traffic of traders, Clarke breathes in the electric pulse of energy. She lets it jump inside her and slowly reignite her earlier thrill as Lexa leans in and quietly says, “Be _here_.”

* * *

The tarps and cloths have been pulled from the trade stands to reveal dozens of large wooden structures laden with food and clothing, arts and crafts, trinkets and treasures. People crowd around the stands, creating swarms of energy and sound, as trade merchants stand behind the structures atop crates and stumps. Some are tame and relaxed, quietly discussing goods with interested parties, while others are loud and boisterous, projecting promise. Those merchants wave their hands about, showing off various items and beckoning new crowds forward as they call out in rapid-fire Trigedasleng and English.

Food stands boast bright bundles of green leafy plants, crates of all sizes filled with different types of berries, and vividly colored fruits. Dried meat strips hang alongside fresh, bloody pieces from carcasses still visibly strung up behind the stands where apron-clad hunters and butchers can be seen stripping and slicing them.

Fires burn behind stands that offer cooked and skewered meats for immediate consumption, and merchants trade them still on the stick. The scents wafting out from those booths are enough to make Clarke’s mouth water and her stomach growl. Steaming skewers are passed their way, merchants bowing their heads in Lexa’s direction as they offer up their goods free of return trade.

Clarke takes her skewer from Lexa and thanks the merchants for their generosity. When they stare at her expectantly, she glances to Lexa who fights a grin and says, “They are waiting for you to try.”

“O-oh,” Clarke stutters. She blushes slightly as she brings the steaming meat to her lips and blows to cool it before sinking her teeth in. A moan soars up from her throat unbidden but she can’t bring herself to be embarrassed about it when she sees the sheer joy that the sound evokes from the merchants. They let out a few hearty shouts of pride, and Clarke feels the tickle of laughter bubble up from her belly as she smiles and thanks them again before Lexa leads her on.

Blacksmiths make music from their open tents, the rhythmic clinking and clanking of metal on metal, as the heat of their work rolls out into the morning air. The red hot tips of newly made swords glow beneath steady hammers. Fletchers polish the pointed heads of their carefully crafted arrows, and bowyers test for proper tension in their bowstrings.

They leave their work upon Clarke and Lexa’s approach and offer up their goods to be tried and judged by the Commander.

“ _Heda,_ ” the blacksmith says, stepping forward to present Lexa with a beautifully crafted dagger. Its pristine blade gleams in the morning sun, and Lexa balances it in her palm as the blacksmith continues to speak to her in Trigedasleng. He points to a large round wooden target set up beside the smithing tent and then steps aside to give the Commander space.

Clarke watches in awe as Lexa spins the dagger around in her hand, twirling it rapidly around her palm and drawing the attention of several in the passing crowd. The blacksmith laughs and claps his hands as Lexa tosses the dagger high in the air. Clarke holds her breath as Lexa spins in place, catches the dagger mid-spin, and then sends it soaring toward the wooden target.

Several people clap and cheer when the dagger lands point-deep in the center of the target and Clarke merely gapes. She clenches her thighs together at the sudden rush of heat that ripples between them and takes a deep breath, but when Lexa turns to look at her, smirking, Clarke nearly chokes on the half-chewed piece of meat in her mouth. She coughs as quietly as possible and swallows it down as Lexa lets out a soft chuckle and turns back to the blacksmith.

“Commander,” the bowyer greets, joining them, “would you try my bow?”

Lexa nods and takes the weapon. She is patient and generous, taking each weapon presented to her in turn and testing it. She provides feedback on each, and Clarke merely stands beside her, watching her interact with her people. She is in a state of awe at the way Lexa’s people trust and love her, the way they look to her for guidance and approval, and the way Lexa simply gives and gives; the way she loves them in return, even if Lexa herself would never use that particular word to describe her affection for her people.

When the bowyer offers Clarke a bow to try, she actually startles and then laughs nervously and shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” Clarke says. “I’ve never used a bow.”

The man smiles at her, a big toothy grin that shows he is missing at least two of his front teeth, and says, “I can teach you.”

Clarke nods and returns his smile. “Maybe someday, yes. Thank you.”

When they say their goodbyes and continue on through the market, Lexa leans in and says, “If you wish to learn, Clarke, _I_ will teach you.” Clarke laughs out loud and it feels too good to stop it, so she doesn’t try. She doesn’t choke it down. She just lets herself be okay, because Polis is bright and welcoming and _alive_ , and Lexa is _jealous_ , and Clarke isn’t thinking about death at all.

It surprises Clarke to hear so much English spoken among the people of Polis. She expected to spend the day asking Lexa to translate everything they heard, but she has heard just as much English as she has Trigedasleng, if not a bit more. The woman who asked about the mountain had spoken English, and when Lexa had addressed her people collectively, she had done so in English as well. It strikes Clarke as odd given how often she had required translation while in TonDC.

“Why do so many people speak English here?” she asks.

“People of all clans reside in the capital,” Lexa tells her as they walk. “The clans do not all share our mother tongue, though many do. Some others have their own. English is the only language common to _all_ the clans.”

“Oh,” Clarke says, surprised. “Well, I guess that helps _me_ a lot. I won’t be so lost. I—”

Clarke stumbles and knocks into Lexa when a small body suddenly barrels into her. Lexa’s reflexes are quick, though, and she catches Clarke and steadies her before either of them can fall.

The boy that had rammed into her yanks himself back and then stands still and frozen in front of her, a wooden mask with a comically enormous nose hiding the upper half of his face as he holds it in place with his hands. He is very small, dressed in tattered brown shorts and a baggy red shirt, and when he speaks his voice is soft and high-pitched. “Sorry,” he mutters quietly and Clarke forces herself not to think of the children of Mount Weather.

He is here and alive and here and _alive_. She repeats the words in her mind even as she offers him a kind smile and says, “That’s okay. Are you all right?”

He nods his head behind his mask and then surprises her entirely by saying, “Sky Clarke.”

Clarke startles and then lets out a raspy laugh. She glances to Lexa, who shares her smile, and then back to the boy. “Yes, that is me,” she says. “What’s your name?”

“Timin,” he tells her before suddenly latching onto her hand and yanking her forward toward the craft stands where his mother waits. “Come get a mask!”

Clarke follows helplessly, glancing to Lexa over her shoulder. The Commander merely shakes her head, lets out a small laugh, and trails along behind them.

Wood carvers trot small wooden steeds across the surfaces of their stands and show off wooden bodies entwined like lovers and frozen in precious, private moments that will last a lifetime. They dance about with wooden masks held to their faces—silly expressions to pull laughter from children and scary faces to frighten away monsters and animal designs of every kind. Clarke smiles as Timin drags her to a particular stand and replaces his silly mask with that of a deer, its great antlers extending up and out from his head.

He reaches for a bird mask, the long beak stretching out and wide, and holds it up toward Clarke. “You are a bird,” Timin tells her, and Clarke laughs and takes the mask from him.

“Why am I a bird?” she asks.

“Because you are from the sky, of course,” Lexa answers, slipping into the space beside Clarke.

“Well, that’s fair,” Clarke says, pressing the mask to her face and making a ridiculous cawing sound that draws a fit of giggles from Timin. She then pulls it away and asks him, “If I am a bird, then what is the Commander?”

Timin pulls his mask from his face and stares up at Lexa with wide brown eyes. Lexa gives him a playfully stern look and says, “Choose wisely.”

He takes a deep breath, his expression serious, and nods firmly before turning to look over the selection of masks. His little hands hover over several before he finally chooses one and carefully holds it up to the Commander.

Clarke can only roll her eyes when Lexa holds the mask up to her face and teasingly says, “ _Pauna,_ Clarke.” She tilts her head to the side while looking at Clarke through the gorilla mask and adds, “A fond memory, yes?”

“Fond is not the word I would have chosen,” Clarke chuckles. She looks down at Timin who is watching them with hopeful eyes and his lip tucked between this teeth, obviously awaiting the Commander’s approval of his choice. Clarke nudges Lexa with her elbow and tilts her head toward him.

Lexa pulls the mask from her face and kneels before the small boy so that she is eye-level with him. “Why do you choose the _pauna_?” she asks him.

Timin shuffles from foot to foot, lip still tucked between his teeth, before he opens his mouth to answer. “He is strong like you,” he says, and Lexa nods, “and fer-um, fershoshus?”

Clarke has to bite her lip to keep from laughing but Lexa merely gives Timin a firm nod and says, “Ferocious, yes. What else?”

“Um,” Timin hums, twisting his body from side to side. He then reaches forward, runs his fingers over Lexa’s hair, and shouts, “And brown hair!”

Lexa lets out a soft laugh and Clarke nearly rolls her eyes at herself for the way she practically swoons over Lexa’s laughter and her interaction with the child. The Commander ruffles the boy’s hair and says, “Wise choice.”

He beams at her before turning to bury his blushing cheeks against his mother’s leg. The woman runs a hand through this hair and bows her head to both Lexa and Clarke, who return the gesture before depositing their masks on the stand and continuing along through the market.

Clarke finds herself paying more attention to the woman beside her than to the various stands they pass as they stroll along. Lexa seems so free here, almost weightless. She carries no weapons and while she maintains her tall and imposing stature, her face is relaxed, serene even. Clarke thinks Lexa should always be this free. She wishes Lexa _could_ always be this free.

They pass by hide stands, animal furs and skins dangling from the roofs while teeth and bones line the surfaces, and then they come to the jewelry stands. Handmade pieces litter their surfaces. There are chokers and headbands, hair ties and headdresses, necklaces and bracelets and rings all crafted from leather and cord, hand-carved beads and colored stones, and more than Clarke can absorb in only glances.

She is unsurprised by the many gifts offered to the Commander as they walk along, but Lexa merely thanks the merchants and passes the items along to the various people staring longingly at the pieces. They thank her over and over and squeeze her hands, and Clarke feels every witnessed kindness take up residence somewhere deep inside her soul.

Clarke is genuinely taken aback, though, when one jewelry merchant approaches her with a wooden ring that has an image of a tree carved into a small circle on it. The woman takes Clarke’s hand and presses the ring into her palm before folding Clarke’s fingers closed over it.

“Please accept this, Clarke of the Sky People,” she says quietly, squeezing Clarke’s hand between both of hers. “For my daughter.”

“Your daughter?” Clarke asks, though she thinks she understands even without asking, and her breathing grows shallow as her chest tightens.

“Her life was taken,” the merchant tells her, and Clarke lets out a staggered sigh.

“By the mountain men,” Clarke whispers, and the woman nods and squeezes her hand again.

Clarke feels her eyes sting with tears and she knows she will be unable to speak, so she just nods and lifts her free hand to squeeze the woman’s hands in return. It is the best she can offer, but the merchant seems to understand. Her own eyes shimmer with tears in the bright afternoon sun even as she offers Clarke a kind smile before moving to take her position behind her stand once more.

Clarke feels frozen in place, her palm clenching around the ring, until Lexa gently nudges her arm.

“May I take you somewhere?” Lexa whispers when they briefly lock eyes, and Clarke can do little more than nod and follow.

* * *

They pass by children playing with wooden boats in a large stone fountain that does not operate but that has been filled with fresh water, and by groups of Grounders beating out lively rhythms on handmade drums. They pass by small huts and great stone and brick buildings, some crumbling and some merely weather-worn. They pass by stone statues, some complete and some only partial, some towering and some spread out over the ground like large pieces of giant puzzles being slowly devoured by the earth. They pass by elderly men telling stories to willing listeners and by people hanging clothes on wires to dry in the sun.

There is so much to see that Clarke knows it will take days, if not weeks, to absorb it all. She clutches the tree ring tightly between her fingers as she walks beside Lexa in silence and lets Polis consume her with every step. They walk until the buildings and the people and the music of Polis begin to fade into the distance behind them and Clarke can no longer feel her feet.

“Here,” Lexa says after what feels like hours, and Clarke shakes herself from her walking-induced trance.

She follows Lexa through the small gate of a wooden fence covered mostly by moss and foliage and into what appears to be an enormous overgrown field of wildflowers. Clarke loses her breath at the rolling expanse of color before her but she stumbles along as Lexa strolls forward through the tall grasses.

A stone bench, mostly hidden from view, stands amidst the field and Lexa settles onto it and motions for Clarke to take the space beside her. Clarke sits and lets her shoulders sag. She takes a deep breath and lets the smell of the wild spill in and dance around inside her. She doesn’t have to tell Lexa that this place is beautiful. It is simply understood.

She sits silently beside the Commander for several long, peaceful moments before saying, “You’re different here.”

Clarke doesn’t turn to look at Lexa but she sees the gentle nod from her peripheral.

“You don’t carry any weapons,” Clarke continues in a voice barely above a whisper. “There are no guards following you around.”

“Just because you do not see something,” Lexa replies, “does not mean it is not there.”

“Where?” Clarke asks, and Lexa lets out a soft rasp of a laugh.

“You will never know.”

Clarke glances around them and Lexa lets out another quiet laugh. Clarke mirrors the sound and then nudges Lexa with her elbow. “Still,” she says, “you’re different.”

“I told you Polis would change what you think of us,” Lexa tells her after a beat of silence.

Clarke turns to look at her then, shifting on the stone bench so that she is fully facing Lexa. She takes in the gleam of sunlit green eyes when Lexa turns to face her as well, and there are parts of Clarke that practically cry out for pencils and paints as she takes in the image. Her breath locks roughly in her chest, and Clarke licks her lips.

“You already have,” she whispers, repeating her former reply back to Lexa.

She watches as Lexa takes a deep breath and then green eyes shift down. Lexa’s gaze dances over Clarke’s lips only briefly but it is enough to make Clarke’s heart thunder in her chest and then in her ears. She expects Lexa to lean forward, and Clarke braces herself for it, but Lexa doesn’t move. She doesn’t lean forward. She hardly even breathes, and they stay that way for what feels like an eternity, surrounded only by a sea of color and a gentle breeze.

And then Clarke feels Lexa’s fingers drift over the skin of her hand, and she looks down just as Lexa slowly begins to peel open Clarke’s fingers to expose the tree ring still pressed securely against her now sweaty palm. Lexa pulls the ring from Clarke’s palm, flips Clarke’s hand, and slowly slides the ring down the length of Clarke’s middle finger.

“You see,” the Commander says, “even horror can yield happiness.”

Clarke’s heart clenches roughly in her chest and she wraps her hand tightly around Lexa’s fingers to keep herself grounded and present, captivated by this one simple, peaceful moment, and Lexa simply lets her.

She allows Clarke to squeeze her fingers and hold her gaze, and Lexa whispers, “Thank you for coming to Polis, Clarke.”

Clarke takes a deep breath, and with her heart still thudding loudly in her ears, she leans slowly forward and presses a gentle whisper of a kiss to Lexa’s cheek. “Thank you for bringing me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Pauna" - "Gorilla"


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short delay on this update. We've been in the process of moving houses, so things have been hectic. I hope you all enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

The moon is already beginning to peek over Polis, sending soft beams of light through the balcony door, by the time Clarke returns to her room for the night. Her stomach is still full from the meal Lexa’s staff had prepared and exhaustion weighs heavy on her bones after a long day’s introduction to the capital, but Clarke has never felt more awake. Her blood is electric with the buzz of the city and of its people, and her heart is still swollen with the image of Lexa’s easy stride and kind eyes; Lexa’s hands wrapping tightly around those of the people reaching out to her so eagerly.

Clarke freezes only a few steps into her room when her gaze flickers over a large moonlit canvas propped on an easel near the balcony door. She gapes at the new addition for a long moment before moving to grab the large lit candle that sits on her bedside table. She uses its flickering flame to ignite the other candles scattered about table tops and dressers until her room is alight with a bright and dancing orange glow, and Clarke’s breath catches in her throat.

It isn’t merely one canvas, but several. Canvases of varying sizes line the floor all along the far wall and at the base of the easel. Clarke carefully picks up one of the smaller ones and runs her hands along it. The material is thick and smooth, likely some sort of animal hide. It is braced to pieces of wood that have been whittled down and smoothed out to make for clean edges. It is beautiful, and Clarke’s stomach flips with her excitement. Her heart races with a sudden eagerness to create, to slather this surface with the countless pictures floating around behind her eyes.

The thrill only heightens when she stumbles upon a large set of supplies near the far end of the wall atop a small table that had not previously been there. There are pencils, some scratchy and some smooth and some whittled into interesting shapes, and there are countless charcoal sticks of different sizes—some very skinny and some thick and long, some pointed and some flat—though they are a bit filmier than the charcoals Clarke had on the Ark. She loves them just the same, if not more. There are small containers filled with different-colored paints that come out thick and creamy on Clarke’s fingertips and smell like fresh earth. She smiles as she rubs them around on her fingers and makes a muddy coating across her palms, though she is careful to avoid the bandage between her thumb and index finger.

There are paintbrushes, thin and thick and short and long. Some have tough bristles that sit a bit too stiffly atop the small metal ferules latching them to their beautifully carved handles. Others are soft and bushy, and Clarke slides them across her cheeks and sighs. Every touch is like a burst of familiarity, bringing her back to herself in colorful strokes that she hopes might someday come together to make a clear and complete image again.

Every ounce of exhaustion spills free, pushing out of her body atop rolling waves of renewed energy and inspiration, and Clarke gets to work setting up her space. She moves a few candles closer to her canvas, drags the supplies table over to rest beside the easel, and opens the balcony door to let more moonlight in. A gentle breeze ripples in as well, and Clarke breathes it in, pure and clean and refreshing. She sets up her charcoals and paints exactly how she likes them and trades out the easel’s large canvas for a medium-sized one.

Clarke searches around her room for something she can use to tie her hair up, and she finds some twine in a basket in the closet, mixed in with a few other materials. She slips it under the wave of her hair before pulling it back and tying her hair in place at the back of her head so that it can’t slither its way into her line of sight while she works. Finally, she grabs a cup of water from the bathroom to dampen and rinse her paintbrushes should she need to, and then settles into the chair in front of her chosen canvas.

She kicks off her boots and pulls one leg up under her. Her tongue pokes out and presses to the corner of her mouth as she slips her fingers over her selection of brushes before choosing her first. Clarke dabs the bristles into a blob of paint and her heart begins to race.

The first stroke, a deep broad press of forest green, feels like summer in Clarke’s veins—warm and bright and thrilling. She pauses as soon as she pulls the brush away from the canvas and takes a deep breath. It bubbles in her lungs and pushes back out in the gritty rasp of a laugh that digs its way up from somewhere deep inside, and Clarke gives herself over fully to the feeling. She hasn’t got a clue what she is painting but that only makes it all the more thrilling. She is swept up in a whirlwind of color and creation, and Clarke thinks she might never want to stand still again.

Clarke paints until her hand begins to cramp and small puddles of wax have dried like thick layers of glue cementing candles to tabletops. She paints until the moon is high in the sky and the night has grown silent outside her balcony but for the nocturnal creatures hooting or buzzing or croaking every so often to make their presences known. She paints until her breath expels in a rush of satisfaction and the exhaustion that had previously slipped away from her slips back in and plagues her with great, groaning yawns.

Leaning back in her chair, Clarke stretches her arms out over her head and feels the strain in her biceps and shoulders and back. Her muscles pull with delicious relief and then relax, and Clarke moans low in her throat as she cracks her neck to both sides and pops her knuckles. She releases another loud yawn, cupping her hand over her mouth, before she lets her gaze dance over the nearly finished product of hours of work.

It still needs a few touch-ups, things that Clarke will likely nitpick over for days. She knows she isn’t as skilled at painting as she is at drawing, but she loves working with color and there are no colored pencils or chalks in her supplies. The details are less defined than they would be had she drawn the picture, but something about that seems to make the painting even more precious to Clarke, like she is looking at a dream; and really, she is.

The canvas is coated in green and brown—brush-stroke trees, tall and towering, stretching out around a moonlit clearing. Her heart thuds against her ribs as she takes in the small painted form of her father standing in the middle of that clearing. He is as alive as the forest surrounding him, as strong as the prodigious trees. His sandy hair is bright in Clarke’s white and gray strokes of moonlight. His arm stretches up toward the sky, his extended finger like a compass pointing Clarke toward the stars. His feet press firmly to the ground, and Clarke feels her eyes prickle with tears even as a smile pulls at her lips.

He is no longer floating.

Clarke lets her tears fall free, blinking them loose to run down her cheeks and over her chin, and some small part of her seems to fall back into place. In this moment, she doesn’t feel like some kind of alien desperately trying to survive in an environment she was not made for. She doesn’t feel like a stranger or even a Sky Person. For the first time since her feet hit the ground, Clarke finally feels a sense of _home_ and belonging. The feeling stirs around inside her until it decorates every breath, and Clarke is overwhelmed with gratitude. She knows she has only one person to thank for it, for giving her back this piece of herself when she thought she had lost everything she had ever believed herself to be.

It is the middle of the night. Her hands are splotched with paint and her cheeks are streaked with tears, and Clarke doesn’t care. She wipes her fingers over her cheeks, leaving smudges of color behind, and pushes out of her chair. She doesn’t allow herself the time to second-guess herself before she is out of her room and pressing her palms and forehead to the outside of Lexa’s bedroom door.

Clarke takes a deep breath, curls one hand into a fist, and gently raps her knuckles against the door once, twice, three times. She knows the sound, however light, will wake Lexa. She breathes against the wood of the door as she waits in the dark hallway, her heart hammering in her chest, and Clarke nearly stumbles forward when the door wrenches open a moment later.

The darkness of Lexa’s room is punctured only by the bits of moonlight streaming in through her balcony door. It creates a glowing halo around the woman now standing stiffly in the doorway in front of her, and it amazes Clarke how easily the sight recharges her and fills her with the renewed need to dive back into strokes and smudges. She stands motionless and speechless as Lexa relaxes her stance upon seeing her and rubs, almost childlike, at her eyes.

“Clarke,” she says, and her voice comes out raspy and quiet. It isn’t a question, merely an observation, and Clarke thinks that maybe Lexa doesn’t care that she has woken her up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason but to stand in the doorway with her and stare. Something about that makes Clarke’s stomach clench and flip, and she lets out a shaky breath.

Lexa is dressed much the same as she was the night before when she slept in the chair beside Clarke’s bed, her long legs exposed and her hair frizzy and full around her face, and Clarke has to swallow down the thick lump that suddenly springs into her throat. She moves before she can talk herself out of it, slipping over the threshold and into the warm bubble of Lexa’s personal space. She locks eyes with Lexa in the dark for only a moment before she slides her slightly trembling hands over Lexa’s hips. She holds her breath as she hears the tiniest gasp from Lexa, and then Clarke takes another step to close the remaining distance between them. Their chests press together as Clarke runs her hands over the curves of Lexa’s hips and then up the warm length of her muscled back. She squeezes around Lexa in a soft hug, and Clarke releases the breath she is holding as she lays her cheek against Lexa’s shoulder, the back of her head brushing the Commander’s jaw.

Lexa stands stiffly against her, rigid as can be and arms hanging at her sides, for several long seconds that feel more like years to Clarke as she waits for Lexa to return the embrace or gently push her away; _something_. She hopes for the former but she doesn’t rule out the latter. Lexa can be unpredictable where feelings are concerned.

Clarke feels Lexa’s deep breath pushing out against her hands where they are pressed against Lexa’s back, and she braces herself for rejection. When that breath eases back out, though, Lexa’s body slowly collapses around Clarke and then there are strong arms encasing her and slender fingers sliding over her ribs and hot breath ghosting over the back of her neck, and Clarke wants to cry.

She wonders how long it has been since someone hugged Lexa, since someone held her like she mattered simply for who she is and not for the title she bears. She wonders how long it has been since Lexa has allowed herself to collapse into another person’s arms, since she has let someone else bear her weight. Clarke imagines it must have been with Costia, but she doesn’t know how much time has passed since then. She doesn’t know how many times Lexa has ached for Costia or for _anyone_ to fill that void, to take up the position beneath her arms and around her waist and make her feel safe and warm and _cherished_ in such a private, precious, _intimate_ way.

When Clarke realizes that it has barely been more than a week since the last embrace _she_ shared with someone, the difference between she and Lexa becomes that much more glaring, and she clenches her eyes closed. Clarke tightens her arms around Lexa, squeezing until she knows she must be laboring the brunette’s breathing, but she can’t help it. She can’t hold herself back from it, and Lexa doesn’t push her away or tell her to stop or even to ease up.

Lexa doesn’t say anything at all, and her embrace is gentle, hesitant even. The longer and harder Clarke holds her, though, the tighter Lexa’s grip becomes until her fingertips dig into Clarke’s ribs almost painfully and her heart hammers against Clarke’s chest. Her breaths are heavy against the back of Clarke’s neck like she is desperate for this connection, like she is starved for this type of affection, and Clarke can feel her own heart throbbing in her throat. She holds Lexa as tightly as she can manage and she still doesn’t feel like it is enough. She doesn’t feel like it will ever be enough.

They are just two girls hugging in a dark doorway in the middle of the night, but Clarke thinks that there is something so gripping about this moment. There is something so captivating about the way Lexa clutches at her sides, burrowing in, and the way Clarke twirls her index finger around a strand of Lexa’s hair, and maybe it is a sad sort of magic but it is also beautiful and poignant and _revelatory_ , and Clarke is overwhelmed by it. She never knew something so simple and ordinary could feel so refreshing and touching.

After all the death and all the finality, this feels new. It feels alive. It feels like a beginning.

“Thank you,” Clarke whispers, turning her head so that her nose brushes against the warm skin of Lexa’s neck.

Lexa’s grip on her eases and their embrace drifts back down from desperate to delicate. She doesn’t ask what Clarke is thanking her for. She doesn’t question anything about this bizarre storm of affection in the middle of the night, but simply runs her hand down Clarke’s back and then up again. She threads her fingers through Clarke’s hair where it hangs in a loose low ponytail at the nape of her neck and lets her chin rest atop Clarke’s shoulder.

They remain that way, in silence, until Clarke is struggling to keep her eyes open. She nearly falls asleep, fully upright and wrapped around Lexa, but she manages to keep herself right on the edge of consciousness. When she yawns against Lexa’s neck, though, Lexa slowly pulls out of their embrace until she can look Clarke in the eyes.

A small smile pulls at Lexa’s lips in the waning dark as she tugs on the end of Clarke’s ponytail and teases, “Do you always fall asleep when upright?”

Clarke lets out a ragged laugh and rubs at her eyes. “When I’ve been awake all night, yes,” she groans.

Lexa’s brows furrow as she reaches up and runs a finger down Clarke’s cheek. “You are dirty, Clarke.”

“It’s paint,” Clarke laughs. “I’ve been up since dinner painting.”

Lexa sighs and shakes her head. “Clarke, you must rest properly. Your body is still healing.” She says it like a reprimand, but the smile teasing at her lips says she is pleased that Clarke enjoyed her gift.

“I know,” Clarke tells her, shifting on her feet. She hesitates to say more, but something about being in the dark with Lexa feels so safe that she lets herself go. “It made me feel like myself again, you know? I could just sit down and let the world slip away and just forget everything for a while.” Clarke swallows down the lump rising in her throat. “ _Create_ something instead of destroying everything.”

Lexa says nothing but simply nods, and Clarke finds so much comfort in that. The more she is around Lexa and the other Grounders, the more she learns to appreciate silence and simplicity; the more she realizes that so much can be said with so little and sometimes that is so much _better_.

She doesn’t have to explain herself with Lexa or worry about restraining the darkness that pushes at her insides so much sometimes that she wants to scream. She doesn’t have to worry about being pitied or coddled. Lexa isn’t going to tell her that she is flawless and that she shouldn’t feel guilty. She isn’t going to tell her that she has to forgive herself or that she has to let go. She isn’t going to put Clarke on a timeline for healing. She may make observations or share her wisdom or nudge Clarke in what she believes is the right direction, but Lexa never _pushes_ and she never will, because she _knows_.

Clarke thinks that that is perhaps the best thing anyone has ever been able to give her—true, layered, painful, _rich_ understanding.

“This is the best I’ve felt in a long time,” Clarke whispers, “and I just want to hold onto that feeling a little longer.”

Lexa nods again, her hair falling forward over her shoulder. “Would you like me to stay awake with you?” she asks in a quiet murmur, and Clarke sighs.

Since this has been a day of giving in, she doesn’t let herself bite back the truth when she whispers, “Yes.”

They stare at each other for a long moment before Clarke lets out an awkward laugh. “Maybe not standing in the doorway ‘til the sun comes up, though,” she says and her voice is gravelly, as exhausted as her body. “My toes are starting to go numb.”

Lexa smiles and surprises Clarke by asking, “May I see your painting?”

“Oh,” Clarke says, pulling her bottom lip up between her teeth and chewing on it. “Um, okay. Sure.” There is something overwhelmingly intimate about sharing one’s art with other people, and Clarke’s stomach flips at the thought of sharing hers with Lexa. “I’m not great at painting, though, just so you know. I’m a lot better at drawing. I just wanted to use color. I like—”

“Clarke,” Lexa says, interrupting, and Clarke halts her ramble.

“Yeah?”

Lexa steps around Clarke and slips out of her room. She stands in front of Clarke’s bedroom door and tilts her head toward it as she looks back at Clarke. “Show me the painting.”

Clarke nods and forces her feet to work. “Right, okay,” she says, walking over to open her door. She steps in, Lexa right behind her, and has to blink her eyes rapidly to adjust to the bright glow of the candles still burning around the room. She makes her way over to her painting, still poised on the easel by the balcony door, and pushes her chair out of the way so that she can stand in front of it.

Lexa moves in behind her, standing close, and Clarke can feel the heat of her body. She can feel Lexa’s breath skirt across her cheek. She closes her eyes and tries not to lean back into the press of Lexa’s form. The warmth and the promise of more contact is tempting, but Lexa is as overwhelming as the complicated web of emotions Clarke feels for her, and she thinks maybe small doses of touch are best. She thinks maybe small doses of _everything_ are best, because feeling too much all the time is exhausting, and Clarke is so tired that her bones still tremble as violently under her skin as they did that day in Mount Weather. She hasn’t yet figured out how to make them be still again, but she thinks she is learning.

Slowly, but surely, she is learning.

“It’s my father,” Clarke whispers, and she hates the way her voice cracks but some losses will always be gaping canyons inside her soul.

Clarke closes her eyes and forces down the urge to cry when Lexa reaches out to run her fingers over the small painted figure of the man and says, “You brought him to the ground.”

There is reverence in Lexa’s voice, and it curls around Clarke’s heart like a tender caress. That is the understanding Clarke so cherishes. Lexa doesn’t flood her with compliments or rave about how great the work is. She doesn’t critique or criticize. She doesn’t ask any questions. She just _knows_ , because she knows Clarke more than Clarke is perhaps ready to admit out loud, but she does. She knows Clarke and she knows loss and she _understands_. How she feels about Clarke’s painting is evident in her tone and in her understanding, in the way her hand comes up to press gently against Clarke’s shoulder blade.

Clarke lets out a soft sigh and nods. She opens her eyes to take one last look at the small painted figure of her father before she moves away from the easel and silently begins to blow out the candles around her room, one by one. She can feel Lexa’s gaze on her back as she moves about the room, extinguishing the warm light, until the last flame turns to smoke and the only light left is the soft blue of the early, early morning.

Clarke says nothing as she then crosses to her bed and slowly begins to remove her pants. She can hear Lexa shuffling from foot to foot on the other side of the room, but Clarke doesn’t turn to look at her. She strips off her pants, leaving her in only her shirt and the shorts-like underwear she found in the closet, and then Clarke crawls onto her bed and slips under the fur blankets.

Lexa stands frozen in front of Clarke’s painting until Clarke pulls back the blankets to expose the empty side of the bed. Clarke doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t have to. She merely waits for Lexa to decide if she wants to stay or if she wants to go.

They hold each other’s gazes as Lexa hesitates only a moment before crossing to the bed and slipping in. Clarke rolls onto her side to face the other girl, and Lexa remains on her back. She is stiff at first but slowly relaxes, and though they don’t touch or scoot any closer to one another, Clarke is comforted by Lexa’s presence.

“Clarke,” Lexa whispers, and Clarke hears the unspoken question in her name.

“It’s just nice to not be alone,” Clarke murmurs, closing her eyes as sleep begins to seep rapidly in on her. “Isn’t it?”

The world has nearly slipped entirely away when Clarke hears Lexa’s quiet answer of, “It is.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being quite a bit longer than originally intended, but I became so enamored with it while writing, and it is such a precious part of the story for me. I hope you all enjoy it as well. Thank you to everyone who continues to support this story and to all of you who continue to share your thoughts and joy. 
> 
> For anyone who is interested, I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "Whispers" by Dave Baxter. XO-Chrmdpoet

The air is cold, so cold. It is icy in her lungs, stinging, but pure and invigorating. Every exhale clouds around Clarke’s lips in a hovering fog of white before billowing outward and dissipating into nothingness in the dark. The night lays thick around her, a black blanket punctured only by the twinkling balls of gas burning high above in the canopy she once called home, and Clarke slips silently among the shadows of soaring trees.

She lets her fingers graze over bark that is cold to the touch as she passes, and she revels in the rough scraping reminders that she is grounded. She stands firmly atop the earth she once only knew from a distance. She feels as old as the trees, as weathered as their coarse coats, and as expansive as their roots. She, too, absorbs. She learns. She grows and grows and never seems to stop, even when it is painful, even when she thinks she might splinter apart with the stretching. She thinks, perhaps, there is something beautiful in the suffering, in the way it makes her stronger.

Clarke is more at home here, in this frozen forest, than she ever could have been in the frozen firmament. She is a part of the ground now, so much so that what little sky remains in her veins feels heavy with falling. There is gravity in her cells and in her soul, weighing her down, holding her steady.

The laugh, deep and rich, that rings out ahead pulls her feet faster forward. It tips her scales from heavy to light and she is running. She is running through the frozen trees, her breath and the breeze mingling in white streams that she leaves in her wake with each hurried step. Her teeth ache in the cold, exposed from the smile that she cannot seem to hide and has no reason to.

“Come on, Clarke!” the deep voice calls in a resounding bellow. “Keep up, kid!”

Clarke’s heart hammers beneath her ribs, and she lets out a breathless laugh as she quickens her pace through the shadows of the trees. She sails over the terrain as if her feet have mapped it time and again, as if she was trained for speed and stealth and silence on uneven ground. She encounters no trouble. She never once stumbles in her sprint.

When she bursts through the final row of trees and into a brightly moonlit clearing, Clarke is swept up in strong arms that spin her around in one grand circle before settling her on her feet again. She laughs like her childhood has filled up her mouth when she takes in the wide, unfettered smile on her father’s face as he, too, exhales melodious clouds of white.

“Took you long enough,” he teases, and Clarke punches his arm.

He chuckles and grabs her fist, pulling her forward and against his chest. Clarke wraps her arms around him and turns her nose against the ragged gray sweater that rises and falls with his deep breaths. His familiar scent spills in and swirls around inside, both aching and soothing. She squeezes him tighter.

“This isn’t real,” she whispers but she never once lets go.

“It is for now,” he says, shrugging as he rubs a calloused hand up and down her arm. The friction sends jolts of warmth through her system and Clarke hums in delight. “So just enjoy it.”

Clarke nods against his chest and grips her fingers around the material of his sweater in the middle of his back. “It’s cold,” she whispers after a long silence, and her father laughs.

“It’s beautiful,” he tells her before spinning her around in his arms so that her back presses to his chest. He points around at the towering trees. “Just like in your drawings.”

Clarke reaches up to wrap her fingers around his hands where they rest atop her shoulders. “Dad,” she croaks, squeezing his hands.

“Yeah, baby?”

Clarke takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. “I never wanted to disappoint you.”

She feels her father’s chin settle atop her head and it pulls a small smile across her lips. “You never have,” he murmurs. “You never could.”

Tears slip free from Clarke’s closed eyes. They feel warm on her chilled cheeks. “You won’t stay, will you?”

A soft sigh sounds from above her and Clarke turns around to face her father. His weathered face is serene, his eyes kind. He smiles at her the way he always did when she was little, when he would tuck her into bed—like she is the beat of his heart, keeping him alive and thriving. “I’ll be with you, kid,” he whispers. “I’ll always be with you.”

Clarke’s bottom lip trembles. “Where?” she chokes out. “Where will you be?”

He gently presses his index finger to her nose before stepping back and away from her. The moonlight dusts over his sandy hair as he smiles at her, and then without a word, he turns his head upward and extends his arm. His index finger points high into the sky, toward the twinkling stars, and Clarke sucks in a sharp breath that feels like ice in her lungs.

He freezes in place, silent and still, like he has grown into the ground, but when Clarke blinks, he is gone.

She stands alone in the cold air of the silent forest, and her father’s absence feels like a stone pressing to her chest.

When Clarke stirs awake, eyes blurry with tears, she still feels the press against her chest. It takes her only moments to realize that the press is warm, comforting, and it doesn’t ache at all. She reaches up to wipe her eyes clear and Lexa’s face swims into view, hovering over her.  It is Lexa’s hand that rests atop her chest, gently pressing over her heart.

“Another dream,” Lexa whispers, and Clarke lets out a long sigh as she nods. Without thought, she slips her hand up over her own chest and lets it settle atop Lexa’s.

It is another moment before Clarke realizes that Lexa’s face is decorated with war paint. Her hair is pulled back in intricate braids, and she is no longer partially bare but fully dressed with only her heavy armor missing.

Suddenly, Clarke is very awake. She jolts up, nearly knocking into Lexa, and asks, “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

Lexa shifts back to avoid a collision and frowns. She shakes her head. “Nothing is wrong, Clarke.”

“But you’re wearing—” Clarke huffs and waves a hand over her face. Her heart is pounding and her head is still slightly hazy with the sudden shift from dreams to reality, and she can’t quite make her words work properly.

“Oh,” Lexa says, as if she had forgotten her appearance, and a small smile tugs at her lips. She shakes her head again and scoots closer to Clarke once more. Gently clasping Clarke’s shoulder, she assures, “Nothing has happened.”

“Then why the paint?” Clarke asks, rubbing at her eyes.

“I must meet with the council of the clans today,” Lexa informs her. “The final member of the council shall arrive soon. The paint is a formality only.”

Clarke lets out a long sigh, her heart calming, and collapses back onto her pillow. She can feel Lexa’s eyes on her even as she covers her own with her hands and tries to rub them entirely clean of sleep.

“You are tired,” Lexa says, and Clarke nods. Her voice is raspy when she murmurs, “Yeah.”

“You should sleep,” Lexa tells her, her thumb rubbing over Clarke’s shoulder once before she pulls her hand entirely away to rest on her own lap. “It is still early.”

“It is?” Clarke asks, pulling her hands away from her face. She blinks and moves to look past Lexa toward the balcony. She feels a lump rise in her throat when her gaze first lands on the painting of her father. He stands, pointing toward the stars, just like in her dream. It draws a deep sigh up from her soul. She stares only a moment longer before allowing her gaze to shift beyond the glass.

The visible sky is a gloomy white, clouds lurking about and promising rain, but Clarke can tell that it is early. Even with the balcony door closed, she can hear the birds chirping the way they always do at first light as if it is their duty to wake the rest of the forest.

Clarke groans and presses her face into her pillow. She feels like she could sleep for years but at the same time, she wants to be up. She wants to be doing something. The heaviness in her limbs makes her think she likely will not accomplish that desire. This bed is too warm and she is too tired, and there are weeks of exhaustion plaguing her bones. “Okay,” she mumbles. “Just a bit more sleep then.”

When she cracks one eye open again, Lexa is smiling at her. Clarke scoffs. “You’re a morning person, aren’t you?”

“I rise when I must, though the earlier I am up, the more I can accomplish in a day.”

Clarke sighs. “I’m sorry I kept you up. I didn’t know you had a meeting today.”

“I made the choice to stay with you,” Lexa tells her, shaking her head. “I do not regret it.”

Clarke’s stomach flips and a wave of warmth rolls out from the base of her spine to spread across her limbs. Her smile is lost to a groaning yawn, and Lexa lets out a soft laugh.

“Sleep, Clarke,” she insists. “When you wake, there will be someone available to bring you food and prepare a bath, if you wish.”

“Okay,” Clarke answers around another yawn. She burrows down a bit further beneath her blankets, pulling one up to her chin and bending to rub her nose against it. “Will I see you again?”

Lexa’s cheek twitches as the corner of her mouth pulls with a smile.

Clarke rolls her eyes and moves under her blankets to bump Lexa’s side with her knee. “Today, I mean,” she says, and Lexa’s smile only grows.

She nods. “I can join you for dinner,” she answers, “if you would like.”

Clarke hums in agreement and Lexa nods before standing from the bed and moving toward the door. She turns back just before slipping out when Clarke says, “Thank you for staying with me, Lexa.”

She hears Lexa’s quiet reply of “Sleep well, Clarke,” just as her eyes are closing again.

* * *

When Clarke wakes again, it is to the sound of rain pattering heavily against the glass panes of her balcony door. The sky is darker even than it had been that morning, and Clarke isn’t even sure how late it is. She knows it is still day time, at least, because the sky is gray but not quite dark enough for it to be night. She figures it must be late afternoon.

She rubs at her eyes and throws her blankets back before sliding out of bed. She pulls on the pants she discarded on the floor and pads over to her door, barefoot. Clarke expects to have to wander around Lexa’s enormous house in search of someone who might be able to help her procure some food and a steaming hot bath, so she nearly jumps out of her skin when she steps out of her bedroom to find such a person standing stiffly just outside the door.

“Oh, whoa,” she says, stumbling back a step as she almost bumps into the woman. “Um, hi.”

The woman turns and smiles softly at her. “Clarke of the Sky People,” she greets, tilting her head forward. “I am Dulari.”

“Dulari,” Clarke repeats, looking the woman over. She is taller than Clarke by a few inches with hair shorter than Indra’s but adorned with little swirling designs that have been shaved into the sides just above her ears. A long scar runs across the center of her face, over the bridge of her nose and down toward her jawline, and Clarke wants to ask what the scar is from, but she doesn’t. She averts her gaze from the scar and clears her throat. “Okay. Nice to meet you.”

Dulari tilts her head forward once again. “ _Heda_ sent me to assist you.”

“Oh, right,” Clarke murmurs, shifting from foot to foot. “Okay. Thanks.”

“I can provide you with food,” Dulari tells her, “or dinner will be served soon, if you would rather wait.”

Clarke remembers Lexa saying that they could have dinner together. “I’ll wait,” she answers, “but thank you.”

Dulari nods. “A bath then, perhaps?”

Clarke figures she may as well go with it, so she just nods and thanks Dulari again before watching the woman scamper off down the hallway. She slips back inside her room and plops down on the end of her bed to wait. It is merely moments, though, before Dulari reappears in the open doorway with a metal bucket filled with hot coals.

Clarke jumps to her feet and moves to help the woman, but Dulari shakes her head and skirts around her, moving toward the bathroom. Clarke follows her in.

“I can help,” she says. “If you just show me what to do, I’d like to help.”

Dulari offers her a kind smile as she squats beside the raised bathtub and begins to shuffle the bucket toward a metal tray beneath the tub, the hot coals spilling out onto it. “It is my pleasure to do this for you,” she says. “Please, rest while I work.”

“Are you sure?” Clarke asks, uncomfortable. She feels awkward being waited on like she is some kind of royalty. She isn’t Lexa, and these people don’t owe her anything—no allegiance, no favors. She doesn’t want them to feel like they have to do things for her just because she is Lexa’s guest. “It’s really no trouble at all for me to help.”

Dulari spills the last of the hot coals into the metal tray before standing fully again. She turns to face Clarke and takes a step toward her. She surprises Clarke when she points to the long scar running across her face. “My brother gave me this scar,” she says, and Clarke feels her stomach clench uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke whispers, unsure of what else to say. “Why …” She hesitates, biting her lip. “Why would your brother attack you?”

“He did not know what he was doing,” Dulari tells her. Her dark brown eyes begin to water but her expression remains strong, her jaw rigid and her chin high. This does not surprise Clarke. All the Grounders carry themselves in such a manner. They are a proud people.

Clarke feels bile bubble up in her throat when Dulari goes on to say, “He was turned.” She takes a deep breath. “Made reaper by the _maunon_.”

“The mountain men,” Clarke whispers, and Dulari nods.

“When he disappeared from TonDC,” Dulari continues, “I thought him gone, dead. I found him in the forest months later and he did not recognize me. He attacked me.” She points to her scar. “He chased me into the village and I could not bring myself to kill him even though I knew he was no longer my _bro_. _Heda_ did what I could not.”

“Lexa killed your brother,” Clarke says, and her voice is choked. She doesn’t know how it is that Dulari has managed not to let loose any of the tears shining in her eyes when Clarke herself feels on the verge of crying. Her throat is so tight that it is painful to swallow.

Dulari nods, slow and reverent. “She freed him,” she says. “I could not bring myself to fight any longer after his death, so _Heda_ offered me a home and work here with her in Polis. It is an honor to serve her, and it is an honor to serve you.”

“But,” Clarke croaks, “I haven’t done anything.”

“You have,” Dulari tells her. “You defeated the _maunon_ , and I have heard whispers that your people can cure the reapers. It is too late for my _bro_ , but knowing that no more will suffer his fate brings me great peace.”

“I killed people,” Clarke chokes out. “ _Innocent_ people inside that mountain.” It surprises her to hear the words spilling through, but it is as if she cannot suppress them. She can’t hold any of it in anymore, not when there are people looking at her as if she is some sort of saint and she feels like anything but.

Dulari holds her gaze for a long time in silence before she speaks. Her words are firm when she says, “Thousands of our people have been slaughtered by the _maunon_. They have burned our children with their fog for nothing more than existing here. They have turned our loved ones into monsters. They have taken from us in a hundred years more than can ever be returned.” She lets out a soft sigh and shakes her head. “We are all innocent, Clarke of the Sky People,” she says, “until we are not, and no innocent life is worth more than any other. A price had to be paid, and it was. Now we can have peace.”

Clarke stands still and stunned in front of Dulari, unable to say anything. Her heart feels like it has jammed itself somewhere between her ribs trying to escape and her eyes are stinging so hard that no amount of blinking alleviates the burn. She can’t help the tear that manages to escape but she brushes it away quickly and casts her eyes to the ground.

“As I said,” Dulari mutters quietly, “it is my pleasure to do this for you.” She doesn’t wait for Clarke to look back up before she turns to complete her task of preparing a bath.

Clarke turns on her heels and pads back into her bedroom. She barely makes it around the corner and out of sight before she bends over and presses one hand over her mouth while her other arm wraps around her stomach. She clenches her eyes closed and flashes of flickering images rip through her mind. She sees her hand on the lever. She sees the dead, littering the tables and the floors. She sees the children, _always_ the children—breathless and burned—and Clarke wants to scream.

But for the first time since the mountain, those images quickly fade and shift to something else. She sees flashes of the reapers, mad with the drug filtering their veins without their consent. She thinks of Lincoln and the way he struggled, the way he suffered, the way he was stripped entirely of self. She remembers Octavia sobbing over his body, remembers the awe and wonder in Lexa’s and Indra’s eyes when Lincoln was jolted back to life and to himself.

She remembers Atom’s burned and boiled flesh and can almost hear his raspy whimpers, begging for death in the wake of the acid fog. She sees stark white rooms and countless cages housing trembling bodies, Grounders strung up like pigs for slaughter—men, women, children—forcibly sacrificed out of greed. She sees Anya, stripped and captured, strong and determined even in the face of death.

She can almost smell the smoke billowing up from the remains of TonDC, hear the ringing in her ears from the missile striking. She sees the frail, nearly naked bodies of the starved captive Grounders stumbling out of the mountain and into the night, barely holding each other up. She remembers the terror in her mother’s eyes when they finally reunited, remembers finding her people shackled to walls and awaiting their deaths. She sees Raven’s limp and trembling form in Wick’s arms as they trudged their way home in the dark.

Dulari’s words play in Clarke’s mind again as she takes a deep breath and forces her spine straight.

_No innocent life is worth more than any other._

No matter how Clarke looks at it, she cannot reconcile the fact that innocent lives were taken. She fully recognizes in this moment, though, that innocent lives were _saved_ as well; countless more than she can even begin to comprehend, those released from the mountain, those of the people who would have been sacrificed to the mountain in years to come. That realization hits her as swiftly and as forcefully as the haunting memories always seem to, and Clarke is overwhelmed.

She lets out a harsh sigh, blowing warm air up toward her wet cheeks and then wipes at them with her hands. When she turns around, Dulari is standing in the doorway of the bathroom, silent. Clarke’s gaze locks onto the long scar on Dulari’s face and then to her kind eyes, watching her with such understanding, and she can’t take it. She feels like she can’t breathe.

“Your bath is ready,” Dulari says but Clarke shakes her head.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke mutters shakily. “I just need some air.” She takes off without another word, not even bothering to put on shoes, and races out of her room and down the hallway. Her heart pounds with every speedy step as she darts down the grand staircase, and she barely registers a familiar voice calling her name before she bursts out of the front door of the building. The stone steps are slick with the pouring rain, and Clarke nearly slips, but she manages to stay on her feet.

She hits the wet ground running, and she hasn’t got a clue where she is running to, but she just knows that she wants to get away. She knows she cannot run from herself or from the conflict constantly brewing in her bones, but that doesn’t stop her from trying. She needs to breathe, needs to be drenched in the downpour. She wants to feel it beating down on her, purifying her in a way that she knows a bath can never accomplish.

The rain soaks through her clothes in a matter of moments, and though it is warm, it still makes Clarke shiver. She runs around the back of Lexa’s house and into the woods. She runs until her chest feels like it might explode and she stumbles to a stop, bracing her hands on her knees and breathing harshly. She curls her toes down into dirt that has been made into mud, and once she has caught her breath, she stands straight and throws her arms out and her head back.

The water beats down between the trees and onto her face. It splatters against her closed eyelids and slides down toward her neck. It pounds against her open palms and against the material of her shirt now plastered to her chest, and Clarke lets out a loud sob. It is almost quiet in the rain and there is something incredibly freeing about that. She could scream if she wanted, wail until her lungs gave out, and the rain would protect her pain. It would hide her cries. It would let her fall apart without the world knowing.

The storm screams in her ears, the heavy roar almost deafening, and Clarke thinks there is something so evocative about standing in the rain. It is as if it has the power to wash away all her defenses and leave her bare and vulnerable. It seeps in and pushes all that she has forced down beneath the surface bubbling back up again, and there is so much, _so much_ , that Clarke thinks she could drown in it.

All her ghosts spill out into the waning day and dance between the wet drops in glimpses and flashes, sparks of pain that somehow feel relieving. Clarke breathes, deep and clean, and lets them go. Even if for only a moment, she lets them go.

“Clarke!”

Clarke turns at the sound and sees Lexa standing at the edge of the forest, one hand pressed against her brow like a salute, shielding her eyes from the deluge.

“Clarke, you are soaked,” Lexa shouts over the roar of the rain. She moves toward Clarke, great long strides over the muddy earth.

“I don’t care,” Clarke yells back at her, and she truly doesn’t.

Lexa moves closer, blinking rapidly as drops collect on her lashes. “I do,” she says. Her face paint smears and slides in gray streams down her cheeks and over her chin. “Come inside.”

They stare at each other for a long moment, both blinking hard beneath the rain, trying to hold each other’s gazes. Clarke sees the haunt in Lexa’s eyes. It is always there, lovely and familiar and heart-wrenching. She imagines her own eyes must appear similar, filled with phantoms.

There are graveyards in their souls.

“Why is life so hard, Lexa?” Clarke shouts through the rain, her voice cracking. “Why …” She shrugs her shoulders and wipes at the water on her face. “Why do we have to suffer so much?”

Lexa lets out a heavy breath that billows into a light fog in the rain. She reaches up and wipes her hands through the streaked paint on her cheeks and then lets the rain wash it from her fingers. She shakes her head and licks her wet lips. “Pain is a part of life,” she says, stepping closer. “Without it, we could not understand the depth of joy.” She takes a deep breath, another puff of fog, and then steps even closer. “Or relief.” She is close enough to touch, and she reaches out and gently pushes Clarke’s sopping hair back from her face. She never pulls her hands away. Her voice is quieter when she shivers and adds, “Or love.”

Clarke’s heart jumps into her throat at the way Lexa’s eyes sear into her and never once look away. Those eyes are a storm entirely their own, sparking and bright even in the surrounding gloom. “You said love was weakness,” Clarke murmurs, reaching up to wrap her hands around Lexa’s wrists.

Lexa dips her head forward, her sodden braids slipping from her shoulder to stick to her cheek. “Yes.” She nods. “I did.” She closes her eyes, paint smeared around their edges, for only a moment before opening them again and slipping her hands free from Clarke’s cheeks. She lets one fall to her side while the other slides down into Clarke’s hand and grips tightly. “Come inside, Clarke,” she says, and tugs on Clarke’s hand.

Clarke lets Lexa pull her toward the edge of the forest, toward the house waiting just beyond, but just before they step clear of the trees, Clarke pulls on Lexa’s arm. When the Commander turns to face her, Clarke holds onto her gaze. “It’s freeing,” she says, waving her hand through the rain.

Lexa lets a small, sad smile touch her lips and she nods.

“You can cry in the rain,” Clarke tells her, reaching out to wipe away a smear of paint from the corner of Lexa’s eye. “No one would ever know.”

Lexa holds her gaze for several long moments before muttering, “I do not cry,” and turning back toward her house.

Clarke’s chest tightens at the words, a pang in her heart. She wants to say that holding everything in isn’t healthy, that Lexa should just let herself cry, but Clarke, too, is guilty of bottling up her emotions. She understands needing to be hardened and detached from the storms inside. She understands the urge to choke everything down and never let it bubble up, never let it boil over. She understands Lexa.

So, when Lexa pulls gently on Clarke’s arm, she doesn’t resist but simply lets Lexa lead her home.

* * *

Lexa calls for assistance when they re-enter the house and requests two towels when a man appears in the entrance hall. He brings them swiftly. Lexa hands one of the towels to Clarke, and they begin to pat themselves down, pressing their faces into the towels and then ringing out their hair. Clarke’s pats down her clothes and then wipes her bare feet clean, and when she finishes, Lexa is looking at her.

There are dark smudges covering her face from her rain-smeared face paint, and she is shivering. It is hardly noticeable but Clarke has come to realize that she notices nearly everything there is to notice about Lexa. The tiniest details stand out to her as if she is tuned to them, as if Lexa is a part of her and every little difference from the norm is impossible to hide.

Clarke doesn’t question it, doesn’t try to make herself hate it anymore. Instead, she embraces it. There is no point is denying her connection to the Commander any longer. She had never been able to accomplish the task anyway.

They trudge their way upstairs, and Clarke can’t remember how their hands became entwined but they are. She doesn’t think but simply pulls Lexa toward her room, and once they are inside, Clarke leads them to the bathroom. She remembers the bath waiting for her and she hopes the coals are still mostly hot. She has no idea how long she has been gone.

“Dulari drew me a bath,” she says, voice shaking as her teeth begin to chatter a bit with the shivers now spilling down her spine.

Clarke dips her hand into her waiting bathwater and finds that it is thankfully still warm, so she lets go of Lexa’s hand and slowly begins to peel her rain-soaked clothes from her body. She sees Lexa spin swiftly around and move toward the door, her hair and clothes still dripping over the floor.

“I will wait for you, Clarke,” she says as she steps out of the bathroom.

“Lexa, wait.”

Lexa doesn’t turn around but she does take one step backward, slipping back over the threshold and into the bathroom. Clarke stares at her back and sighs. “Please don’t leave,” she whispers.

She waits for an answer, but Lexa says nothing. After another painfully long moment, though, Clarke sees Lexa’s head dip forward in a nod and then the brunette slips out of the bathroom. She returns a moment later, carrying the chair that Clarke had placed in front of her easel. Lexa pushes the chair up against the side of the tub, its back facing the water, and then lowers stiffly into it.

Clarke figures that that is better than nothing, so she peels her clothes off and lets them fall to the floor with a wet plop. She sighs in relief as she steps over the side of the tub and sinks down into the water. It only takes a few moments for her to warm enough that her teeth stop chattering. She lies back in the water and stares at the side of Lexa’s head, hair soaked from the rain. She sees another shiver ripple through Lexa’s body, and it makes her chest ache with guilt.

“You can join me,” she says without thinking and has to swallow down the enormous lump that instantly forms in her throat. She clears her throat and tries to think of something to say when she sees Lexa stiffen in the chair, spine becoming even more rigid than it already had been. “I just mean, you’re probably uncomfortable in those wet clothes, and I’m the reason you were out in the rain in the first place. I don’t mind sharing the bath, if … if you don’t mind.”

Clarke is pretty sure that she can _hear_ Lexa swallow, and she thinks the Commander might just take her up on her offer, but then Lexa shakes her head.

“Thank you,” she replies quietly, “but I will wait, Clarke.”

“Does nudity bother you?” Clarke asks, because Lexa is so adamant about averting her gaze and apparently about not sharing a bath.

Lexa shakes her head again. “No,” she says. “It does not bother me at all.”

“Because you can face me,” Clarke tells her. “I mean, it’s not anything you haven’t seen before. I don’t care.”

There is a long silence before Lexa lets out a soft sigh and then quietly says, “If I was to ever see you nude, Clarke, I would want it to be because you _do_ care rather than because you do not.”

Clarke swallows thickly, letting those words sink in. They ripple through her system like a heat wave, flames licking pleasantly at her heart and then her stomach and then farther down, sparking between her thighs. She licks her lips and lets out a shaky breath. “Okay,” she whispers.

The silence that settles between them then is practically deafening, and Clarke thinks the room might implode. She plops her fingers atop the water, chewing on her bottom lip, before saying, “Well, if you won’t get in, then you should at least go change into dry clothes.”

“I am fine, Cl—” Lexa starts, but Clarke cuts her off.

“You’re shivering,” Clarke tells her. “Just go change, Lexa.”

Lexa doesn’t argue but simply nods and rises to her feet. She doesn’t make it out of the bathroom, though, before Clarke says, “Lexa?”

Lexa halts but doesn’t turn to face her. “I will return, Clarke,” she assures, and Clarke sighs at the way that the brunette always seems to know what she needs, what she wants to say without her ever having to actually say it. There is something so incredibly soothing about that, something thrilling, something terrifying … something _right_.

* * *

When Lexa returns, she is dry and dressed in a loose sleeveless gray shirt and tight black shorts that strap around her thighs. Her face has been washed clean and she carries a tray of food with her and a small jug of what Clarke assumes must be water. Clarke has already finished her bath and has changed into sleepwear. She sits atop her bed, ringing her hair out in a towel that she lets drop to the floor when Lexa carries the items over and carefully sets them on the bed before climbing on. She sits across from Clarke and silently pours her a glass of dark brown liquid that is clearly not water.

“It burns at first,” Lexa says, offering Clarke the glass, “but it passes.”

Clarke takes a sip and realizes that it is alcohol, the taste not dissimilar to Monty’s moonshine. She revels in the burn as it slithers down her throat and bubbles in her stomach, and she watches Lexa do the same.

They eat their food mostly in silence, only the rain beating out a steady rhythm against the house. It eventually begins to gnaw at Clarke, so she clears her throat and asks, “How was the council meeting?”

Lexa only nods in response, giving nothing further, and Clarke sighs. Part of her is glad that Lexa doesn’t want to talk about the meeting, though. She knows it was about the events at Mount Weather, and that is the last thing Clarke wants to think about. It haunts her enough already. She thinks maybe Lexa already knows that, and that is why the Commander chooses to remain silent on the subject. Clarke’s chest swells with silent gratitude.

She sips at her alcohol and takes another stab at conversation. “Are you staying in here again tonight?”

Lexa looks up at her. “Would you like me to?”

Clarke lets her gaze fall to the empty tray between them, and she picks at the fur of her blankets. “You don’t have to,” she murmurs.

“Clarke,” Lexa says, and Clarke looks back up. When their gazes lock, Lexa quietly asks, “Is my presence a comfort to you?”

Clarke closes her eyes and nods. “Yes.”

When she hears Lexa shift, she opens her eyes again to see the brunette setting the food tray on the floor and her glass on the bedside table. Lexa then stands and moves around the room to extinguish the few candles that are lit. Once they are out, she darts back to the bed and pulls back the blankets before slipping in.

Clarke sets her own glass aside and dips under the blankets beside Lexa. Like before, they don’t touch or shift closer to one another but simply share the same space. “Is mine?” Clarke whispers in the dark, watching the shadowed silhouette of Lexa’s chest rise and fall.

Lexa turns onto her side to face Clarke. “I do not know what you mean.”

Clarke’s heart stutters in her chest before picking up speed. It thuds against her ribs as she licks her lips and asks, “Is _my_ presence a comfort to _you_?” She isn’t sure why she wants to know, but she does. She _needs_ to.

The silence stretches out so long that Clarke thinks Lexa is not going to answer, or maybe even that she has fallen asleep, but then she hears the Commander’s whisper. It is hardly more than breath but it washes over Clarke as powerfully as the rain had.

“Yes.”

Clarke shifts closer, only an inch or two, and lets her hand slide across the bed under the blankets. It collides with Lexa’s arm and Clarke slides her fingers up the length until she reaches Lexa’s hand. Their fingers tangle together in the space between them, and Clarke feels her entire body calm with the comfort it offers.

Their hands remain clasped in the dark as the silence seeps back in again and sleep comes calling.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your continued support. It means so much to me. Apologies for the short wait. I had a birthday to celebrate. :)
> 
> For anyone interested, I wrote this chapter to two soundtracks, and either would make a lovely reading companion, so take your pick. "In My Veins" by Andrew Belle and "Elastic Heart" by Sia. Enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

Clarke wakes before sunrise. Having slept most of the previous day away, she cannot keep her eyes closed another minute. She blinks them open to find her vision obscured by a bush of brown hair, Lexa’s wild mane covering her own face and poking out toward Clarke’s. Lexa’s feet are tangled around her own and their hands are still touching between their bodies, though they are no longer clasped. Clarke lets out a quiet laugh, rough with dreams still clogged in her throat, and carefully reaches up to push and smooth Lexa’s hair back, revealing the brunette’s face.

She takes in the slack, peaceful expression on the Commander’s face and has to stop herself from reaching out to trace her finger over elegant features that practically beg to be drawn. It is different, seeing Lexa like this—loose, relaxed, curled into herself but still open, allowing touch and comfort and closeness. It is overwhelmingly intimate, Clarke thinks, as if she is witnessing something she shouldn’t be, something precious and private and nearly spiritual. She is surprised Lexa allows it, allows Clarke to see her this way.

Something stirs in her, like breathy whispers between her ribs, as she realizes just how much trust Lexa has given her. For someone like the Commander to allow this measure of vulnerability with Clarke of all people, someone she has betrayed and given reason to seek retribution, is breathtaking. What surprises her more, though, is her own behavior with Lexa, the trust that _she_ places in the Commander.

After Mount Weather, Clarke thought she would hate Lexa. She had tried desperately to hate her, and even when she failed, she held tightly to the knowledge that she could at least withhold trust. She clutched onto it like a life raft, as if that one act of withholding could somehow keep her afloat when she felt so full with sinking, but even that had been a misguided hope. She trusted in Lexa more than she had allowed herself to realize before, more even than she was able to comprehend.

The betrayal weighs heavily on her heart, and she suspects it might _always_ be a stone in her chest, but Clarke has never once doubted her safety in Lexa’s hands. Even when she believed herself separate, distant, and unwilling, she had given herself over to Lexa in bits and pieces—in the full, fiery force of her anger, in the unquelled release of her sorrow, in small and simple comforting touches, in restful and restless sleep, in whispers and secrets and insanity.

Clarke sucks in a deep breath that trembles its way into her lungs, because even when the world is so cruel that nothing and no one else makes sense, Lexa does. Lexa makes sense to Clarke, even in her often unyielding mystery. Lexa is sound and safe, understanding. Clarke thinks maybe the understanding matters more than the trust ever could, though both are present. The understanding is what keeps her afloat. The understanding is what keeps her alive and steady. It is what keeps her from crumbling beneath the searing brands of decisions and disasters burned into both their skins. The understanding makes all the difference in the world.

“You are staring, Clarke.”

Clarke jumps, her knee knocking against Lexa’s. She flushes a deep crimson but Lexa doesn’t see it. Her eyes remain closed though a hint of a smile touches her lips when Clarke jolts.

“Go to sleep,” Lexa murmurs. “The sun is not yet up.”

“How do you know that?” Clarke asks when she finds her voice again. She licks her lips as her gaze drops to Lexa’s nearly nonexistent sleepy smile. “Your eyes are closed.”

The corner of Lexa’s mouth tilts up just a bit more but her eyes remain closed. Clarke waits for an answer, waits for Lexa to say something. When she receives nothing but continued silence, though, she carefully slides her hand across the bed under the covers and pokes Lexa’s hip bone.

Lexa lets out a sigh. “You are not sleeping.”

“I can’t sleep,” Clarke says. “I’m awake.”

Lexa isn’t budging. She lets out another sigh, long and exaggerated, and presses her face into the pillow. Clarke wants to laugh but instead she just stares, just soaks in this quiet, open moment, and when Lexa seems to have drifted off again, she lets her thoughts sweep her up again and send her drifting.

“I wanted to hate you,” she whispers, and her heart races with the realization that she has just spoken the words aloud.

Lexa cracks one eye open, glossy green landing on Clarke, and Clarke feels compelled to say more. She takes a deep breath and lets the quiet dark of the room bring everything to the surface.

“I tried to hate you,” she says. “I tried not to think about you, and when I did think about you, I reminded myself over and over that you left me on that mountain and that maybe if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have all this …” Clarke’s voice cracks and she brings a hand up to press it to her chest. “ _This_ ,” she repeats, tapping the flesh over her heart and knowing that Lexa will understand. “I wouldn’t have all _this_ inside me.”

Both of Lexa’s eyes are now open and fixed on Clarke. She is alert, listening, receptive, and she shifts closer, enough to be able to touch Clarke without reaching. Her fingers dust over Clarke’s forearm under the blankets but she doesn’t pull or ask for anything. She is but a whisper of physical comfort in a moment that feels saturated with things left unsaid for far too long.

Clarke breathes easier when Lexa touches her. She feels grounded and safe, safe to say the things that have been swirling in her mind and pushing out at her seams. “I tried not to think about you,” she says again. “I tried not to care about you, but …”

Lexa licks her lips and her voice comes out raspy and soft when she asks, “But?”

Clarke sighs and presses her hand to her chest again. “You’re in me,” she says, tone rising with a hint of frustration, because she can’t find the words to describe what she is feeling in a way that makes sense. She hopes Lexa gets it regardless. “You’re just, you’re _in_ me.”

“Clarke,” Lexa whispers, and her fingers wrap more firmly around Clarke’s forearm under the blankets. She rubs her thumb along the prominent bone there, gently back and forth, and Clarke closes her eyes.

“I can’t explain it,” Clarke murmurs. “It’s like you’re always there, always on my mind, always a part of me, even when I try to push you out. You’re there. When it hurts and when it feels good and when I can’t breathe and when I want to scream and when I want to laugh, and … you’re always there, Lexa.” Clarke blows out a heavy breath and opens her eyes again. She locks onto Lexa’s gaze, the air thick and alive between them, and whispers, “You’re everywhere.”

Clarke watches as Lexa draws in a slow, deep breath and lets it out in a staggered rush of air. Lexa nods slowly against her pillow. “You are in me too, Clarke.”

Clarke swallows thickly as tingles erupt in her gut and her pulse thuds in her ears. “So what does that mean?” she croaks, voice broken around the surge of emotions rippling through her body.

“Many things,” Lexa whispers. She shifts closer so that their bodies press together and they share the same pillow. Lexa tilts her head forward so it presses against Clarke’s, and they both close their eyes. “But those things should not stress you, Clarke. You are healing, and we are learning each other again. It is a process. We need not have it all figured out right now.”

Clarke lets those words sink in and push the stress from her body until she is boneless and limp. She lets out a soft sigh and nods against Lexa's forehead, their noses just slightly brushing. Silence seeps in on them, and they lay still and touching for what feels like hours, before Clarke mutters, “Lexa?”

“Hm?” Lexa hums, and Clarke traces the line of the Commander’s jaw with her index finger.

“Take me somewhere,” she whispers.

Lexa opens her eyes and shifts back enough to look at Clarke. “Where would you like to go?”

Clarke smiles against her pillow, soft and slight. “Anywhere,” she says. “Take me anywhere.”

* * *

As Lexa leads her along the damp dirt streets of Polis, Clarke notices that the market is not as lively as it had been before. A few people mill about, trading, but mostly everyone seems to busy working together to accomplish various tasks. People carry large stumps carved into benches and chairs toward the city square where Clarke had seen children floating boats in the fountain. Others work at pushing trade stands together to create larger stands and stocking them up with a variety of trinkets and goods. The meat stands are abandoned, the hunters entirely absent, and the arts and crafts merchants are gathered in the square, decorating what appear to be large banners.

It is a bit humid out from the previous day’s rain and Clarke fans at her face as she watches the people work. “What are they doing?” she asks, and Lexa leads her on, continuing their walk.

“They are preparing for the festival,” the Commander answers and Clarke looks at her, surprised.

“There’s going to be a festival?” she asks, and Lexa nods. “When?”

“One week’s time.”

“Oh.” Clarke steps a little closer to Lexa so that their arms brush as they walk. “Because of the war?”

“Mm,” Lexa hums with another firm nod. “A celebration of the new peace and of the return of the captives. Those who wish to come will be lead to Polis from the relief camp over the coming days. Indra will see that the rest are accompanied to their villages. Some have much distance to travel.”

A tense silence falls over them as they continue walking, and Clarke hates the way that silence pushes at the spaces between them like Mount Weather will always be a yawning void between their bodies and beating hearts. It pricks and crawls along her skin and she cannot stand it, so she clears her throat and asks, “What are they like, the festivals?”

“Much like Polis itself,” Lexa answers. “Full of life.”

Clarke smiles. “That sounds nice.”

“It is,” Lexa tells her. “There is food and drink, music and dance. The people will be joyful. I am confident you will enjoy it.”

“Yeah?” Clarke nudges Lexa’s elbow with her own. “You’re taking me to the festival?”

Lexa’s lips purse together and Clarke can tell that she is fighting a smile. “Would you like me to take you, Clarke of the Sky People?”

Clarke rolls her eyes but lets out a soft chuckle. “I think I would, Lexa of the Tree People, yeah.”

Lexa smiles then, dropping her head just a bit so that her braids fall over her shoulder and hide it, and Clarke finds it endearing and beautiful.

A loud chorus of shouts and laughter reaches them and Lexa instantly perks up. Clarke is surprised to see the Commander’s expression soften and flood with affection. Her sunlit eyes dance with life and perhaps even a bit of mischief as she turns to Clarke and tilts her head in the direction of the sounds.

“Come, Clarke,” she says before taking off between the two nearest wooden huts down a thin dirt path sporadically adorned with broken cobblestones and long, flowering weeds. 

Clarke hesitates only a moment, watching curiously as Lexa darts down the path, before following. She hugs the small canvas she had brought with her to her side as she jogs to catch up with the Commander. The sounds grow louder as she runs after Lexa, thick thuds and high-pitched squeaks and grunts and clapping and so much laughter. Clarke feels her adrenaline spike, her body pushing her to rush and race toward promises of things long denied her—joy and amusement, relief.

She falls into step right beside Lexa as they emerge from between a broken stone statue and a large tent on the far end of the path, and the source of the sounds is suddenly clear. Children sprawl wildly along the tree line a short distance from them, play-fighting with sticks and swords carved out of wood. Some are fully clothed, trousers and thin shoes and shirts too big for their small bodies, and some even wear pretend armor constructed from big, floppy leaves and sticks and thin sheets of scrap metal. Others are barefoot and shirtless, their shirts tied around the tops of their heads like bandanas, and their bellies and shins are streaked with mud.

Clarke feels her heart tug in her chest when Lexa points to the children and then turns back to Clarke with a near-blinding smile. Clarke’s breath hitches roughly in her throat. She hardly has time to absorb the rare sight of such a smile though, to let it fully infiltrate all the quiet, yearning spaces inside her, before Lexa motions Clarke to follow again and turns back toward the children.

Lexa’s expression grows serious and severe almost instantly and she straightens her spine into a rigid line as they approach the children, who have yet to notice them. When they are close enough, she loudly clears her throat, capturing the attention of the few nearest children. They whirl at the sound and freeze in place.

 _“Heda!_ ” a little boy practically squeaks, and that one word sets off an almost comical chain reaction among the other children. One boy nearly trips over his own feet from whipping too quickly around and a small girl with braids already down to the backs of her skinny thighs runs over with so much enthusiasm that she practically hops the distance. They each abandon their play and scramble to stand in front of Lexa, mouths gaping and eyes reverent.

“ _Heya strik gonakru_ ,” Lexa says as she faces the children, and then she repeats herself in English. “Hello little warriors.”

Clarke stands off to the side as she watches Lexa tower regally over the horde of children, and she almost has to cup a hand over her mouth to hold in the absurd noise that gurgles up in her throat at hearing Lexa address the children as ‘little warriors’. She finds herself melting further as the children beam in response. They practically glow with pride at the title.

She startles, though, when one of the children suddenly tosses a wooden sword in Lexa’s direction. Lexa, however, is not fazed. She simply snatches the toy from the air and turns to smirk at Clarke before lowering into the same stance Clarke had seen her take when facing the _pauna_.

“ _Mela op_ ,” Lexa says to the children. _“Loka au.”_ She then immediately repeats herself in English again, and Clarke realizes that Lexa is not only playing with these children but she is teaching them as well. “Heads up. Eyes open.”

The children each raise their sticks and toy swords and lower into stances similar to their Commander’s. When they all seem ready, their eyes wide and their grips tight, Lexa glances around the small crowd as if sizing each child up and then points to one and says, “ _Yu. Jomp em op._ ” The small boy waits for Lexa to repeat the words in English, making it clear that this sort of play with the Commander is not new to him or the others. Lexa has played with them, taught them, before, and Clarke feels dizzy and full with the realization.

“You,” Lexa says to him again. “Attack.”

There is no hesitation on the boy’s part. He instantly and skillfully jumps forward, his toy sword splitting the air in a heavy slash and thudding against Lexa’s as she defends herself. She is gentle in her counter attack and he parries expertly, his dirty feet sliding easily through the mud as he moves. Lexa lets out a raspy chuckle and nods to him, which seems to excite the boy. He grins and lunges at her again, and Lexa carries out the play battle with him for several back-and-forth strikes before she signals for the fight to be over.

Clarke drops onto a large stone nearby, a piece of statue that a hundred years of weather has smoothed and made flat. She sets her small canvas atop her lap and pulls the two pencils stashed in her pocket free before getting comfortable and turning her eyes back to the scene. She bites her lip around a smile when Lexa pats the boy’s head and then his bare back as he runs back to his friends.

Lexa calls for the next fighter, a girl with only one arm and barely tall enough to stand at thigh-height to the Commander. Her brown eyes are fierce and calculating, though, and she flicks her head to toss her braids over her shoulder as she inches slowly forward, crouched and ready. When she lunges forward with her first strike, she lets out a shrill battle cry that makes Lexa smile, wide and gleaming in the daylight. She is strong and skilled and undeterred and reminds Clarke of Octavia—so much spirit and eagerness to learn and achieve.

The sun is bright and streams across Clarke’s canvas beautifully as she presses the tip of her pencil down and lets the familiar rhythm of scratching strokes spill through her cells and her limbs and then finally her fingers. The small forms of the children come together in light, messy lines that blend and appear almost in motion. She scratches out their braids, dangling down their backs or rippling out in the air behind them as they play, their eyes bright and wide with thrill. She draws the mud bubbling up between their toes and the muscles clenching in their petite fists as they grip their toy weapons and stand at the ready. She lets their energy pulse through her, lets it build her up and urge her on and make her feel like she is as alive and vibrant and joyful as they are.

She sketches Lexa out in meticulous pieces. Her hair is wild, whipping out and around her, and Clarke does her best to capture the sunlight shimmering through it like it is painting a story in the strands. Though colorless on canvas, Lexa’s eyes are bright, alive in a way that promises some pains are only temporary, and the slide of her smile is as full and natural as the forest around them. Her body is long and graceful, predatory, striking, beautiful, and Clarke draws her brandishing a wooden sword as if it is a royal scepter.

She draws rapidly and dazedly, entranced by the work and the scene inspiring it. The day is bright and beautiful, and Clarke feels like she is pulsing with life. It offers such relief after so many days of breaking and dying and losing herself in the haze of guilt and regret, and Clarke’s cheeks hurt with the joy stretching her lips and bursting across her teeth like blinding sunlight.

Lexa sends the last of the individual little warriors back into the crouched crowd and then lowers her stance again. She looks around at them all before thrusting her toy sword into the air and shouting, “ _Kom wor!”_ Clarke doesn’t need to hear the translation of that particular cry, having heard it on the cusp of actual battle when Lexa had stood atop the hill with her and shouted down to their waiting warriors. “To war!”

The children all rush toward Lexa, letting out squeaky battle cries that make Clarke’s heart clench in her chest and her throat bubble up with laughter. They come at Lexa as a united front, jumping in and back and around the Commander while slashing and thrusting with their sticks and swords, and Lexa pivots in the center of the horde. She blocks their attacks with ease and grace as she circles in place, defending, and the smile stretching her lips never falters.

Clarke finishes her drawing just as an echoing chorus of laughter splits the air, and her head snaps up to see Lexa pretending to have been stabbed by one of the children. She clutches her side and lets out a dramatic grunt before dropping to her knees and bowing her head, and Clarke laughs through her fingers as she covers her mouth with a smudge-painted hand.

“ _No mou,_ ” Lexa groans, holding a hand out while the other still clutches her side. “No more!”

The children squeal and laugh and drop their toy weapons to the ground before pouncing on her. Clarke swoons at the way Lexa ruffles their hair and pats their backs and even lets them pull her into tight hugs before rising to her feet again. Clarke sees Lexa point in her direction.

 _“Leida yongons_ ,” she says, waving to the children. “Bye.”

“ _Leida!_ Bye!” They shout at Lexa’s back as the Commander makes her way over to where Clarke is sitting, wiping her hands on her pants, and Clarke tries to quell the fluttering in her chest and stomach.

“May I see?” Lexa asks before she even reaches her, pointing toward Clarke’s lap. It takes Clarke a moment to tear her eyes away from Lexa, sunlit and still smiling, and glance down to the canvas still resting atop her knees.

“Oh,” she says. She nods before turning the canvas around and handing it over.

Lexa takes the piece, holding it gingerly like something private and precious, and Clarke watches green eyes absorb. When Lexa looks back up at her, there is clear reverence in her eyes that nearly renders Clarke breathless. “May I keep this?” she asks.

Clarke bites her lip around a smile and nods. “You like kids,” she says after a short silence and Lexa tilts her head to the side.

“Do you not?” she asks, and Clarke quickly shakes her head.

“Oh no,” she says. “I _do_ like kids. I never got to be around many of the younger ones on the Ark unless they were brought into the infirmary when I was assisting my mother, but I do like kids. I just meant that you seem really happy with them. I never imagined the Commander playing pretend war with a bunch of wild rascals.”

Lexa smiles. “They must learn,” she replies quietly, “but learning must not always be so serious. Children need play as much as they need lesson.”

Clarke wonders if Lexa ever got to play as a child. She wonders how old Lexa was when she was called to lead her people, if she was stripped of the wild imagination and simple pleasures of childhood before she ever truly got to experience any of it. It makes her ache, and she wants to reach out and touch Lexa but she doesn’t. Instead, she simply rises to her feet and stands beside her, letting her shoulder brush against Lexa’s, their fingers touching in a gentle tap of knuckles before pulling back again.

“Did you live in a cloud?”

Clarke and Lexa both turn at the question and Clarke nearly laughs out loud as she sees a small girl looking up at her with her hands on her hips and her head cocked to the side.

Lexa clears her throat and Clarke can hear the amusement in her voice when she asks, “Yes, Clarke? Did you live in a cloud?”

Clarke chuckles and shakes her head. “Not in a cloud, no,” she answers. “I lived in space with all the stars.”

The girl’s eyes light up at that. “I can see the stars,” she practically squeals. “Could you see _us_?”

“Not from so far away,” Clarke tells her, “but I’m glad that I’m seeing you now.”

The little girl smiles shyly and nods before turning to run back to her friends, and Lexa nudges Clarke’s arm and tilts her head behind them. “Would you like to walk some more?”

Clarke nods and falls into step with her. It is the first time in a long time that her heart aches from being too full with joy instead of regret.

* * *

Lexa takes Clarke to the ocean, down to the water’s edge where they sink into the wet sand and get lost in a silence that is as vast as the blue but comfortable and soothing. Clarke is captivated by the sight, the waves rolling in in quiet laps and drifting back out, ever in motion. The sunlit water sparkles and extends as far as she can see, stretching out as if it knows forever, and nothing, _nothing_ , could have prepared Clarke for the way it makes her feel—small and finite, a tiny piece of a giant world that could swallow her whole if she let it.

The feeling pulses in every part of her, taking on the undulating rhythm of the waves, and she is lost to it. All her steadiness is swept up in the waves and rolls away from her, and Clarke feels slanted and shaky. She wonders why it is that something so immense, so eternal, can call to the deepest parts of her and pull them up to the surface like water slipping up the shore. It is evocative, like the rain, and Clarke feels her throat grow tight and itchy.

She drops onto the sand beside Lexa and pulls off her boots. When the water, cold and foamy, rushes up over her toes and the tops of her feet, she gasps and lets out a wet laugh. Clarke glances to Lexa and finds the Commander already looking at her. Her throat only grows tighter, so that her words are strangled when they spill through.

“I want to be happy,” Clarke says. “Sometimes that feels impossible, and then there are moments and days like today that make me think I can be.”

“You can,” Lexa tells her. “It may not happen as you expect, but you can have happiness, Clarke.”

“I feel guilty, though,” Clarke replies in a whisper, “for even hoping for it.” She shakes her head and sighs. “I don’t know if I deserve it after everything I’ve done, and that makes me feel like maybe I shouldn’t even try. I just feel so unsteady all the time, like the tiniest thing can throw me off. There’s no balance. It’s all chaos.”

Lexa nods. “It takes time and work to regain balance, Clarke,” she says. “You will be steady again.”

“I don’t even know how to start.” Clarke leans back to lie down in the sand. “I’ve just sort of been drifting from day to day. I don’t know where to begin.” She digs her fingers and toes into the sand and stares up into the bright sky. It is just as vast as the ocean and just as blue, and Clarke feels surrounded by forever.

“Would you paint for me, Clarke?” Lexa asks after a long silence, and Clarke turns her head to look at her, curious. Lexa is on her back, eyes trained on the sky, but Clarke’s canvas rests on her stomach, and her fingers gently clutch the edges.

“I only brought one canvas,” Clarke tells her, “and all the paints are back in my room.”  

“Not here,” Lexa says, and Clarke frowns.

“Then where?”

Lexa turns to look at Clarke before pushing up into a sitting position and then onto her feet. She brushes sand from the backs of her legs and arms and helps Clarke up as well. “I will show you.”

* * *

Lexa stands in the center of her bedroom, glancing around the space, before locking onto her bed. She moves to the part of the bed that is pushed against the wall and latches onto one of the wooden bed posts. She grunts as she pushes the bed out and away from the wall before moving to the end and pulling it even farther back. When Lexa’s bed is in the center of the room and Clarke is staring at her like she has lost her mind, Lexa lets a small smile pull at her lips and she points at the wall her bed had only just been pressed against.

“There,” she says.

It takes a moment for Clarke to realize what Lexa is saying, but when she does, her jaw drops and she gapes at the brunette. “Your wall?” she blurts. “You want me to paint on your bedroom wall?”

Lexa replies with a slow but firm nod.

“Why?”

“Painting gives you joy,” Lexa says simply with the slightest shrug of her shoulder, and Clarke’s heart swells in her chest. “You are calm and content when you create. It will help you to get back to yourself.”

“Yeah, okay,” Clarke replies, shuffling from foot to foot, “but you already got me a ton of canvases, and that’s more than enough for me to draw and paint on. You don’t have to offer up your bedroom wall just because painting makes me feel better.” She has to admit, though, that it makes her stomach flip and her spine tingle.

“It benefits me as well,” Lexa says, and Clarke scoffs.

“How?”

Lexa shrugs a shoulder again. “You are very talented, Clarke, and I enjoy art. You have seen the work I allowed the children of Polis to create here. I would have you do the same.”

Clarke gapes for a long time before stepping forward and around Lexa’s bed. She steps up to the wall and runs her hand down the smooth surface. “Really?” she whispers, turning to look back at the woman behind her.

Lexa gives another firm nod.

“What would I even paint?” Clarke asks her. “What do you want a giant mural of?” She laughs at the thought as she runs her fingers absentmindedly over the wall, the digits already itching with the urge to create on such a large surface.

“Whatever you like,” Lexa tells her and Clarke’s eyes nearly bug out of her head.

“You don’t even know what you want?” she blurts. “You’re just going to give me free reign to paint whatever I want on your _bedroom_ wall?”

Lexa nods again. “I trust you, Clarke. I trust in your vision.”

Clarke’s breath catches in her throat as she stares at Lexa and fights the sudden stinging in her eyes. Every layer of Lexa’s that she peels back is more beautiful than the one before and together they make a masterpiece that Clarke thinks maybe only divinity could create, but she is amazed to witness any of it, _all_ of it; amazed and grateful.

She licks her lips and whispers, “If painting doesn’t heal me, Lexa, I think you might.”

Lexa takes a deep breath and lets her gaze fall to the floor. Clarke sees her lips pull with a small smile but Lexa keeps it hidden and asks, “Will you paint the wall, Clarke?”

Clarke nods and runs her hand over the surface again. “I will.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter covers a short phasing of time--bits and pieces of the days leading up to the festival, which will be covered in the next chapter. I hope you all missed Javas. He is such a pleasure to write. This story has taken over my life when I'm not working. It has come to mean so much to me, and I thank you all for taking this journey with me. I appreciate reading your thoughts about and experiences with the story so much.
> 
> For anyone interested, I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "Wolf's Law" by The Joy Formidable. I hope you all enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

Lexa leaves just after sunrise, gently informing Clarke that she has another meeting with the council to attend. Clarke mumbles her acceptance and tries to burrow back under the covers and into the dark of sleep, but she only manages another half-hour of restless rolling before she gives up and drags herself out of bed. She slips on the comfiest clothes she can find in her enormous closet and then goes about the work of carrying her art supplies into the room across the hall.

Clarke spends nearly a full day staring at the blank wall in Lexa’s bedroom, trying to see what could be there. She narrows her eyes at the blank space while munching on food brought up to her by Dulari. When her stomach is full, she hops off the chair she has been sitting on and runs her hands over the large surface of the wall like she is trying to feel for hidden clues. She presses her forehead to it, hoping that something will simply come to her. When nothing does, Clarke sighs and takes to walking around Lexa’s bedroom instead, absorbing as much detail as she can.

She knows she could paint something familiar to her, like the view of earth from space, or even something her fingers have etched into blank surfaces countless times before like towering trees and flowing rivers and night skies speckled with stars. She could paint landscapes and dreamscapes and the ways they always meshed together in her mind and in her art long before her feet ever touched the ground, but all those things feel too full with _her_. Clarke doesn’t want to paint pieces of herself across Lexa’s wall, but pieces of _Lexa_ instead. She wants the mural to be rich with Lexa, rich with all the silent treasures held beneath the surface.

Clarke runs her fingers over Lexa’s tattered books and maps, over the war wall adorned with wins and losses and virgin weapons that have yet to experience either, over worn weapons still caked with both. She takes in the intricate details of Lexa’s many trinkets, gifts from her people, each alive with its own form of beauty and spirit and gratitude, and then her fingers slip over the meticulous work of the necklace she had noticed on her first venture into Lexa’s room.

“Costia,” Lexa had whispered so quietly that day as Clarke clutched delicately to the necklace. Clarke stares at the green stone dangling from its cord, the color of Lexa’s haunted eyes. It is almost as if the stone has a haunt of its own, and that is when it hits Clarke.

Her blood sparks and ignites with inspiration and she is back at the blank wall in two long strides. She reaches for one of her pencils and stares at the expanse of her waiting canvas for only a moment before moving to the left and carefully pressing the tip of her pencil to the wall. Her mind races and her heart pounds and her tongue sticks between her teeth as she carefully begins to sketch out the images dancing around behind her eyes.

Clarke sketches out the bones of a large part of her mural and is just finishing the left-hand side when the bedroom door opens. She whips her head around and sees Lexa standing in the doorway, watching her. “Go back out!” she shouts, using her body to the best of her ability to block the portion of the wall already drawn on.

Lexa freezes in the doorway and stares at Clarke, confused, for a long moment before she seems to realize what the fuss is about. Her lips pull with a smile and Clarke shouts at her again.

“It’s not funny!”

“It is,” Lexa replies, and Clarke groans.

“Just turn around or something until I can cover this,” she says. “I don’t want you to see it until it’s finished.”

Lexa maintains her teasing smile but simply crosses her arms over her chest and says, “Very well, Clarke.” She lingers only a second longer before turning and exiting the room again.

It takes Clarke another five minutes to cover the section of the wall she has already begun working on, and she nearly falls off the chair she has to stand on to reach high enough to poke the points of two daggers through a thin sheet stolen from Lexa’s bed and pin it to the wall. She doesn’t press them in too deeply because she doesn’t want to leave gaping holes in the wall that she is going to be painting, but just enough to hold the sheet in place. Once she is finished, she jogs over to the door and yanks it open again.

Lexa stands across the hall from her, leaning against Clarke’s bedroom door. She smirks when Clarke bites her lip and says, “Sorry. I just want it to be a surprise.”

Lexa nods once. “I understand.”

When they lay in Clarke’s bed later that night, Lexa quietly asks, “Does this mean I am banned from my room, Clarke?”

Clarke laughs out loud in the quiet dark of the room and confirms.

* * *

Lexa leaves for yet another council meeting the next morning, something about festival preparations and peace talks, and Clarke barely registers the light brush of fingertips over her cheek before she is alone and drifting back to sleep.

When she wakes again, it is late morning, and Clarke is already itching to get back to the mural. She opens the balcony door in Lexa’s room to let in as much natural light and fresh air as possible before removing the sheet covering her preliminary sketch and diving back into her work. Clarke draws as much as she can, detailing out all the images dancing in her mind, and realizes that when finished, this mural will be more like a collage than anything. Bits and pieces come to life at the tips of her fingers, spanning the wide wall, and the more Clarke draws, the more her mind races with new thoughts and pictures.

She closes her eyes and calls the details to mind, sketching much from memory. She leaves the center of the wall blank, though, not yet sure how to fill it.

When her hand begins to cramp and she has nearly gone cross-eyed from sitting so close to the wall and staring at lines and angles and curves, Clarke finally calls it quits. The room is mostly dark but for the candles she had been forced to light when the sun refused to stay up an hour or four later than usual. She covers up her mural before carefully extinguishing the candles crowding her work place and makes her way back to her own room. Clarke isn’t sure what time it is, but by the moon’s position, she can guess that is late and Lexa has yet to return.

Clarke falls onto her bed with a sigh, exhausted but more at ease than she has felt in a long time. Her limbs are loose and liquid and her head isn’t cloudy with all the things she wishes she could forget. The high of drawing is still alive in her veins, warming her up from the inside, and Clarke feels liberated.

The graveyard inside her is calm and quiet, and this night, unlike so many before, doesn’t feel haunted at all.

Clarke stirs awake some time later when she feels the bed dip beside her. “Lexa?” she mumbles, rubbing at her eyes and shifting beneath her blankets. She cannot remember falling asleep and she has no idea how late it is, but Lexa reaches through the dark to squeeze her arm and reassure her.

“Yes, Clarke,” she confirms and Clarke yawns.

“How late is it?” Clarke mumbles against her pillow as Lexa settles in beside her.

Lexa turns on her side to face her, but Clarke’s eyes have yet to adjust to the dark. It is nearly another full minute before the brunette’s outline becomes clear in the faint moonlight. “Quite,” Lexa says, and Clarke shifts closer, reveling in the warmth of another body.

“Is everything okay?” she whispers.

“All is well, Clarke,” Lexa replies quietly, letting out a long and heavy sigh that sounds so incredibly contrary to her words, and Clarke can smell a hint of alcohol on the Commander’s breath.

Clarke wants to question her further, wants to ask about the frustration and exhaustion lacing Lexa’s voice, but she doesn’t. Lexa’s quiet command of, “Sleep now,” is enough to let Clarke know that conversation isn’t on the table.

She shifts closer still until she can tangle her feet around one of Lexa’s ankles and presses her forehead against the Commander’s shoulder. Clarke doesn’t have a lot to offer, but she thinks she can at least be soft and warm and _here_ , and maybe that is enough for Lexa because her body relaxes against Clarke’s and within minutes, Lexa’s breathing is deep and rhythmic.

Clarke wonders if they will eventually be unable to sleep without each other. She thinks Lexa might call that weakness, but in the warm nest of her bed with art still thrumming in her veins and Lexa’s breathing like a lullaby in her ear, Clarke cannot bring herself to care.

* * *

Clarke wakes early the next morning and is surprised to find Lexa still in the bed with her, wide awake and staring at her. The early morning sun creates a glowing halo over the side of her face and along the slopes of her blanketed body and the outline of her bed-mussed hair. Clarke drinks in the sight before rubbing the sleep from her eyes and wiping at the dried drool on the corner of her mouth. She nudges Lexa with her knee when she hears the other girl’s quiet laughter, and asks, “What?”

“What?” Lexa replies with a slight shrug of her shoulder, and Clarke nudges her again.

“You’re staring at me.”

Lexa nods. “Yes,” she says simply and Clarke cannot help but to laugh. The sound croaks in her throat, though, when Lexa whispers, “The sun is nice in your hair, like gold.”

Clarke licks her lips and drops her gaze from Lexa’s. Her stomach flips pleasantly, and her heart races against her ribs. “Thank you,” she murmurs, and Lexa nods again.

“You are welcome.”

Clarke takes a breath that manages to evolve into a yawn, and she traps it behind a hand cupped over her mouth before saying, “I didn’t think you’d still be here when I woke up. You’ve been in a lot of meetings lately.”

Lexa sighs against her pillow. “And today as well,” she admits, and Clarke almost laughs at the way the words escape the Commander in a quiet groan. She sounds almost like a child annoyed at having to get up for early lessons. “I should rise soon.”

Clarke hesitates to ask but Lexa’s eyes are tired and ripe with things unsaid, and so she asks the same question she had the night before. “Is everything okay?”

Lexa’s expression crumples for only a moment before her mask shifts firmly into place and her features smooth out once more. “Everything is fine, Clarke.”

“Everything is fine?” Clarke presses. “Or everything _isn’t_ fine, and you just don’t want me to worry about it?”

Lexa lets out another long sigh, but instead of answering, she rolls over and pushes herself out of bed. She says nothing as she slips into Clarke’s closet to dress for the day, and when she emerges, she quietly informs Clarke that she will likely be late again in returning. Clarke doesn’t manage to get a word in before Lexa is gone.

She puts her first strokes and swirls of color on the wall that day and does her best to lose herself in layers of blending shades. She nearly growls herself hoarse over trying and failing to mix the right color for a particular section and Clarke assures herself that it has nothing to do with worrying over Lexa.

She is never quite fully convinced.

* * *

Lexa is only just slipping into bed, Clarke watching her in the dark, when there is a knock on the bedroom door and they both jerk to attention. Lexa presses her hand to Clarke’s shoulder to ease her before making her way to the door. She opens it only a crack and Clarke hears her carry on a quiet conversation in Trigedasleng.

When the door closes again, Lexa lets out a long, heavy sigh that Clarke is beginning to think is the only sound she might ever hear from the Commander’s lips again.

“What is it?” Clarke asks and Lexa turns to face her. The moonlight captures her features between the shadows as she leans against the door, and she appears almost ethereal in the light gray wash.

“Javas has arrived with those from the relief camp,” Lexa informs her. “I must go to meet them.”

“You need to sleep,” Clarke argues.

“Soon,” Lexa tells her and then slips from the room.

Clarke lies alone and awake for hours before she is able to drift off again. When she wakes, she realizes she has hardly slept at all and the sky is barely colored with streaks of sunrise. Lexa has not returned, and Clarke tries not to feel like the bed is too empty without her.

But it _is_ empty. Empty and big and cold.

Clarke crawls out of bed and determines to actually go outside for the first time in days, get some fresh air that isn’t spilling through an open balcony door while she breathes in the earthy scents of her paints. She thinks maybe a walk will only help to inspire her more. The center of her mural is still blank after all.

* * *

She goes to the ocean, the same spot Lexa had taken her to before. Digging her toes down into the sand, Clarke wraps her arms tightly around herself to protect from the chill of the morning breeze rolling in off the water. She stares out into the wide, endless blue and breathes in the pungent smell of the sea. Even only a deep breath here is enough to spill through her insides as if the ocean has slipped inside her veins. It makes her feel clean and alert, awake and inspired.

Staying for what feels like hours, Clarke allows herself to be hypnotized by the rhythm of the waves and the way the sun kisses the water’s surface in sparkling gems. Her fingers ache in the cool air and she hugs herself tighter as a shiver runs down her spine. She knows she can retreat back onto the warmer roads of the city, between buildings mercifully blocking the wind. She can retreat back to the warm embrace of Lexa’s room, dip back into her paints and let her work swallow her up again, but she isn’t ready to leave.

Clarke startles when a lightweight cloak is suddenly dropped around her shoulders, but she relaxes quickly into the material when she sees Javas settle onto the sand beside her. He doesn’t look at her but merely keeps his eyes trained on the ocean, and Clarke smiles.

“Thanks,” she murmurs as she pulls his cloak around to the front of her body. Her knees are pressed against her chest and she wraps the cloak over them before tucking her arms inside and propping her chin atop her knees to hold the material in place. It smells like dirt and smoked meats and maybe a little like sweat, but Clarke doesn’t mind. It’s comforting all the same. “Did Lexa send you to look for me?”

Javas gives a small shake of his head but his eyes remain fixed on the ocean. “I come to fish for the festival.”

“Oh,” Clarke says, nodding atop her knees, “right. Lexa said you were one of the best hunters.”

“ _The_ best,” Javas replies, turning toward her just enough to offer a subtle wink. 

The confidence he exudes and the touches of humor, given sparingly but sincerely, are so reminiscent of Lexa that Clarke cannot help but to smile. Her heart is swollen with the moment. She lays her head down, cheek resting against her knees, and grins at the man beside her. “I can see where your niece gets her charm,” she says, and Javas lets out a booming laugh.

“I would have had you know this in the forest days ago,” he replies, shaking his head. “Maybe then you would not have been so stubborn.”

Clarke groans and presses her face into the material of the cloak. She pulls an arm out from under the cloak to push her hair out of her face before looking back at the man. “I’m sorry you had to put up with me.”

“You look well,” Javas says, waving off her apology. “You are eating now.”

Clarke nods, and Javas points to her now visible hand, no longer bandaged and sporting only a thin, scabbed line between her thumb and index finger.

“Your hand heals.”

Clarke nods again and holds it up. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. It should be fully healed in a few days, though I’m sure I’ll have a scar.” She chews on her bottom lip as she looks at the scabbed line. “Thank you for helping me.”

“Thank you for washing,” Javas replies, and Clarke lets out a choked laugh drowned in the loud melody of Javas’s own. She kicks sand at him and he only laughs harder.

When silence settles over them, Clarke’s gaze drifts back to the sea and her thoughts drift back to Lexa, back to the unfinished mural on her wall; back to the glaring blank space in its center. She speaks before she fully realizes what she wants to say.

“Can I ask you something?”

Javas nods.

Clarke licks her lips and quietly mutters, “Did you know Costia?”

Javas stills at the name, and Clarke sees the way his body stiffens. It is enough to give away the answer, and Clarke thinks maybe she shouldn’t have asked at all. She is on the cusp of apologizing when Javas lets out a long, heavy sigh and nods.

Clarke isn’t sure if she should press the topic, but she wants to know. Part of her feels like she needs to know. She doesn’t even bother trying to convince herself that it is solely about the partially sketched mural on Lexa’s bedroom wall, because she knows that that isn’t all there is to it. She wants to know for her and for whatever it is that has been brewing between her and Lexa since Clarke’s first steps into Lexa’s tent what now feels like ages ago. She wants to be connected, even if only by tiny strands of stories, to the pieces of Lexa she has yet to reach.

“What was she like?” she asks, hoping Javas will be receptive to talking about her.

Javas is silent for a long time, simply staring out into the ocean. When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter than usual and not nearly as gruff as Clarke has grown accustomed to it being. “Like the earth,” he says, and Clarke’s brows furrow.

“What do you mean?” she whispers. For some reason, she doesn’t feel quite right asking the question out loud. Such a topic feels too private, too delicate, like it must be handled with care and with quiet.

Javas pushes his fingers down into the wet sand near Clarke’s bare feet and pulls up a handful of the thick, gritty stuff. “She was alive,” he tells her, rubbing the sand between his fingers, “full.” He lets the sand fall back to the ground as he lets out another sigh, and then with a grunt of a laugh, he adds, “Wild.”

Clarke smiles softly and squeezes her arms more tightly around herself.

“Always in the forest,” Javas continues, “chasing _Heda_ up trees and into rivers and creeks, making messes and returning home with sticks in their hair and mud on their cheeks.”

“Before Lexa became the Commander?” Clarke asks, surprised. She hadn’t put much thought to how long Lexa and Costia might have known one another before Costia was taken by the Ice Queen.

“Mm,” Javas hums with a nod. He holds up his hand to indicate a child’s height. “Little Trouble,” he tells her with a quiet laugh. “She could talk _Heda_ into anything.”

Clarke bites her lip around a smile. “Like what?”

“Cliff jumping,” Javas tells her and Clarke’s eyes widen.

“Like into the river?” she asks, recalling her own unfortunate experience with having to jump into the water from an extraordinarily high place. She shivers at the memory.

Javas nods and scratches at his beard. “Wild,” he repeats, and Clarke laughs.

“Were they okay?”

“Costia hit a jagged rock,” Javas says, and he trails his index finger down the length of his thigh from his hip to his knee. “Cut her leg open here, deep. _Heda_ carried her back to the village. She lost much blood. _Heda_ refused to speak to her for a week.”

“A whole week?” Clarke asks, grinning. “Did she make it?”

Javas gives her a pointed look and says, “A day only.”

Clarke chuckles despite how tight her throat feels. She imagines Lexa warring with her emotions, trying to be stubborn and angry while Costia probably just laughs and kisses her cheeks and convinces her not to be mad. It makes her ache for Lexa, for the way these stories now likely haunt when they should humor.

“What else?”

“Hunting _pauna_ ,” Javas tells her and Clarke gasps.

“No,” she says. “Seriously?”

Javas nods and lets out a loud bark of a laugh. “They were missing three days,” he says. “I found them hiding in a cave, no weapons or food.”

“What happened to their weapons?” Clarke asks, and Javas grins.

“Lost to the _pauna_ ,” he tells her. “Costia was a hunter, bow and arrow. All her arrows could not stop the _pauna_ , and _Heda’s_ daggers too.”

“Those things are practically invincible,” Clarke says, shuddering. “Lexa and I had to trap it just to get away.” Her mind briefly flashes with the image of Lexa clinging desperately to the cement wall at Clarke’s feet.

_Leave me!_

_No way!_

Clarke’s heart still races with the memory.

Javas nods and releases another gruff laugh, pulling Clarke back to the moment. “Anya was _pis_.”

“Mad?” Clarke asks, and when Javas nods again, Clarke snorts with laughter. “Sounds like her.”

“Mm,” Javas hums. “Punished _Heda_ for a week.”

Clarke digs her toes down into the sand and squeezes herself tighter beneath Javas’s cloak. “How old were they?”

“Young,” he says simply, shrugging a shoulder. “Costia was taken only a year after _Heda_ was called to lead.”

Clarke’s eyes prick with unshed tears as she watches Javas’s expression grow sorrowed and distant again. He stares out into the blue while Clarke stares at him, and the silence that settles around them feels deeper than the ocean rocking and sloshing mere feet from them.

“I watched _Heda_ suffer,” Javas whispers, and Clarke feels her heart clench tightly in her chest. “Light dim. Joy gone.” He swipes a large hand down the front of his face and over the braids in his thick, bushy beard. When he looks over at Clarke, she can see clearly in his eyes how much he loves his niece, how much he hurt for her after Costia’s death, how much he still hurts for her sometimes.

Javas places his hand on Clarke’s shoulder and gives her a firm pat. “The world asks much of a leader,” he says, and Clarke nods, blurry-eyed, against the tops of her knees. “ _Heda_ gives more than most and takes nothing in return.” He pats his own chest, just over his heart. “She protects her heart but it is there.”

Clarke pulls her arms free from the cloak long enough to wipe away a rogue tear streaking over the bridge of her nose. She sucks in a trembling breath and whispers, “I know.”

She remembers herself calling Lexa heartless, and Clarke knows that even then, she hadn’t believed it to be true. She knows Lexa’s heart better than she ever dreamed she would; better, she thinks, than most ever will.

Clarke spends the rest of her morning at the beach with Javas, and when she returns to Lexa’s bedroom with the sun high in the sky, the blank center of the wall is the first thing her paintbrush touches.

* * *

When Lexa slides into bed long after dark, her hair is wet and her skin smells fresh like soap. Clarke wraps a wet strand of hair around her finger, tugging gently, and Lexa smiles in the dark.

“You are awake,” she whispers, and Clarke nods against her pillow. “How is the painting?”

“It’s good,” Clarke tells her, and it is. She has been painting nearly every waking moment with only a few exceptions, and every day she feels a little lighter than the day before. “I think I might finish it before the festival.”

“You work quickly,” Lexa says, and Clarke nods again.

She takes a deep breath, her stomach clenching with unease because she knows she can’t put off asking any longer. It seems like each passing day, while Clarke grows lighter and stronger and more alive, Lexa sinks further and further into exhaustion and concern. Clarke’s own concern for Lexa is gnawing at her insides, and part of her thinks she knows why the Commander is being so tight-lipped.

“Whatever it is you’re hiding, Lexa,” she whispers, and Lexa stills across from her. Clarke sees her smile drop away in the dark. “Whatever it is you don’t want to tell me, all these meetings you’ve been stuck in … it has something to do with my people, doesn’t it?”

She is surprised when the Commander doesn’t hesitate to murmur, “Yes.”

Clarke swallows thickly and closes her eyes. “Are they safe?”

“Yes,” Lexa whispers again, and Clarke releases a relieved sigh.

“So tell me then,” she mutters, tugging gently on the damp strand of hair again. “It’s bothering you and I know you think you’re protecting me or something, but they’re still my people. Maybe I can help.”

Lexa hesitates and Clarke tries to comfort her by laughing softly and adding, “And then maybe you can actually come to bed at a decent hour.”

“You left because you needed time,” Lexa says and her fingers slip over Clarke’s wrist in a light caress. “I want to allow you that time.”

Clarke’s heart swells in her chest and she closes her eyes. Her throat feels swollen with gratitude. “You’re going to have to tell me anyway, right?” she croaks.

“It can wait,” Lexa replies quietly. “It can wait until after the festival, Clarke.”

“Are you sure?”

Lexa nods against her pillow and Clarke lets out a staggered breath. She doesn’t open her eyes when she rolls over and puts her back to Lexa, but she surprises both Lexa and herself when she reaches back for Lexa’s arm and pulls it around her middle. Lexa melts against Clarke’s back, their bodies molding together perfectly, and her nose nudges blonde hair aside before brushing gently over the back of Clarke’s neck.

Clarke squeezes Lexa’s hand where it rests over her stomach and whispers, “Lexa?”

“Yes?” The single word is a hot puff of air that sends a wave of tingles down Clarke’s spine.

Clarke sinks further into Lexa’s embrace and murmurs, “Thank you.”

Lexa’s reply is a whisper of a kiss pressed against Clarke’s flesh, a ghost that doesn’t haunt but soothes.  


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of the support for this story, and for your kudos and comments. I appreciate them all so much more than I can say.
> 
> This chapter is incredibly special to me. I've been excited and anxious to get to it for a while now, and I'm glad to finally be able to share it with all of you. 
> 
> I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "To Build A Home" by The Cinematic Orchestra, and I strongly urge you to listen to it AT LEAST while you read the final scene. It really packs a punch. I hope you all enjoy it. XO-Chrmdpoet

When a knock sounds on her door, Clarke feels a ripple of excitement roll through her limbs and down her spine. She and Lexa had spent the day apart, Lexa meeting with a few people about festival activities and Clarke applying tiny nitpicky touch-ups to her already finished mural. Lexa had promised to return just after sundown to collect her for the festival, and she is right on time, because the sun fell only minutes ago and Clarke can see through the balcony door that the sky is still faintly lit with the last dying streaks of orange.

Clarke bites her lip and takes one last look in the mirror. Her face is bare and clean in her reflection and she has twisted her hair into a singular golden braid that rests just over her shoulder. The top she chose is long-sleeved, loose, and flowing. The dark blue color really brings out her eyes, and Clarke feels pretty in it. It is the first time she has actually felt pretty in a long time. Her pants are skin-tight but comfortable, dark gray and frayed across the knees, and very suited to her body. She considered wearing one of the dresses in her closet, but she was concerned about getting cold since the festival is an evening affair and the nights are beginning to get colder. She quickly tugs on her knee-high boots and then darts over to the door.

Clarke isn’t sure why she is so concerned with how she looks, because it isn’t like Lexa said she had to get dressed up for the festival, but her stomach hasn’t stopped flipping and squirming since she woke up that morning and Clarke thinks it might be because this night feels somewhat like a date. Then again, she has never actually been on a date, so she has no idea what they are supposed to feel like. Fluttery, nerve-wracking, exciting, and possibly vomit-inducing seems accurate, though.

When she pulls the door open, Clarke feels her heart jump into her throat. Lexa stands on the other side of the frame in black boots, black pants that look to be painted onto her legs and have thin chains strung along the waistline from hip to hip, and a tunic-like white top that is nearly see-through and longer in the back than it is in the front. The front portion is tucked into the front of her pants while the back hangs free toward the backs of her thighs. The sleeves are nearly nonexistent, less like sleeves and more like thin strips of white material that have been wrapped loosely around Lexa’s arms so that bits of bare flesh are visible along their lengths. Her hair is mostly pulled back from her face, draped behind her shoulders and undoubtedly riddled with braids that Clarke cannot yet see, and she wears face paint but not her usual design. Instead, she sports only a thin horizontal bar across her eyes, temple to temple, and Clarke’s throat is a desert.

“Clarke,” Lexa says with a soft nod.

Clarke shifts from foot to foot and smiles. She clears her throat to make sure her voice will come out clear when she replies, “Lexa.”

They stand in the open frame and stare at each other for another long moment before Lexa blinks and steps forward. “This is for you,” she says as she holds up a necklace that Clarke had not noticed in her hand. It is made of long, black and braided cord with only a singular blue stone at its apex. It is simple and beautiful, and Clarke isn’t sure how to feel about it, but the sheer vulnerability in Lexa’s eyes is enough to leave her breathless.

“Oh,” she murmurs, reaching out to touch the stone. She swipes her thumb over it once and then retracts her hand, looking up to lock eyes with Lexa. “What is this for?”

“You do not like it,” Lexa says, pulling the necklace back with a subtle shake of her head.

“No!” Clarke reaches for Lexa’s hands and latches on. “No, I do!”

Lexa looks at her with narrowed eyes and Clarke tries her best to plead with her own.

“I really do like it,” Clarke tells her. “It’s beautiful. I just … I didn’t get _you_ anything.”

Lexa stares at her for a long moment, silent, before letting out a soft breath and whispering, “You are here.” She then steps forward again to carefully slip the necklace over Clarke’s head. She runs a finger over the stone where it rests atop Clarke’s chest, and Clarke wraps her hand around Lexa’s and around the necklace.

When Lexa meets her gaze, Clarke squeezes her hand and says, “Thank you, Lexa.”

Lexa only nods and turns to lead Clarke out of the house.

* * *

Polis pulses with energy and music that overwhelms the moment they step foot outside of the Commander’s house. The dirt roads of the city, lit with paper lanterns and burning torches, are packed with people, some dressed in elaborate costumes with wild masks and animal-fur capes with hoods made out of the beasts’ heads. Children dart in and out of the teeming crowd packed around the city square with toy swords and masks and little flags on sticks. Trade stands are set up all throughout the square, offering up goods or services free of return-trade, like face painting and hair braiding, fire-roasted meats and other foods, small flags and banners, children’s toys, and costume pieces.

Clarke is surprised to see several different types of games set up around the square as well. An archery game challenges players to skillfully pass arrows through different-sized hoops, two of which are flaming, to hit wooden targets on the opposite sides. Another game offers a similar challenge but with daggers. One game requires players to knock over three wooden figurines with a small ball, and yet another challenges players to toss and land three metal rings around rods sticking up out of the ground. Each game offers a variety of prizes to winners, everything from toys to jewelry and even clothing and weaponry.

Lively musicians sit along the fountain and beat rhythmically against hand-crafted drums while others dance wildly and cheerfully around them. It takes minutes only for the beat to feel as if it has slipped into Clarke’s veins and she can’t help but smile when she glances beside her to see Lexa walking along with her hands braced behind her back but subtly bopping her head in time with the rhythm.

“So, what do we do first?” Clarke asks, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. They never had anything like this on the Ark. Even the celebrations and dance parties they had every once in a while were not as lively as this, or as packed, and there is so, _so_ much to take in.

Lexa smiles and waves an arm aimlessly, indicating anything and everything. “Whatever you like, Clarke.”

Clarke is overwhelmed and unable to choose, so she laughs and throws her hands up. “I don’t know,” she says. “Anything!” She nudges Lexa’s elbow with her own. “You choose.”

Nodding once, Lexa takes off and Clarke scurries after her. As they make their way through the large crowd, countless people offer their respects to Lexa in graceful bows or dips of their heads. Some reach out to her and she takes the time to grasp each of their hands for a moment before moving on. Clarke is surprised by how many people call out to _her_ as well.

“ _Heda kom skaikru!_ ” They shout out the title Clarke stumbled her way into after the hundred accidentally started a war with the Grounders, waving to her or dipping their heads in respect much as they did for Lexa. “Sky Commander!” Some reach out to her as well, a gentle shaking of hands or a soft touch on the shoulder. “ _Klark kom skaikru!_ ” It makes Clarke feel dizzy and overwhelmed, but these people are smiling and looking at her like she is special and important and worth so much more than the things she has done that still simmer in her veins, and Clarke thinks maybe this is what it feels like to take a step away from the haunting and into healing.

She feels a light touch on the inside of her elbow and glances to her left to see Lexa watching her as they weave through the crowd. The question in her eyes is clear and Clarke nods.

“I’m okay,” she says, a smile pulling at her lips, and Lexa merely nods in return before turning her attention back to their path.

* * *

Lexa leads her over to the archery and throwing games, and though she won’t admit it aloud, Clarke secretly hopes it means that Lexa is about to spend a little time showing off. Those running the games cheer at the sight of their Commander and the small crowds of queued players immediately part to let her pass through, eager to see her play. When Lexa goes to select her daggers to toss, a large hand slaps down on the table beside her.

“A challenge, _Heda_?”

Clarke laughs out loud when she sees Javas grinning in front of Lexa. He plucks three daggers off the table and arches a brow at his niece.

A sudden hush falls over the small crowd surrounding them, and Lexa glances around to her people before casually shrugging a shoulder at Javas and saying, “If you wish to lose.”

As soon as the words leave her lips, the people erupt into cheers and laughter, and Lexa grabs three daggers of her own before stepping several feet back from the line painted into the dirt. Javas shakes his head and follows, and Clarke moves to the side to watch with the rest of the crowd.

Javas tosses first. He puts his back to the three distant targets, each with a hoop set up in front of it, and Clarke watches as he bends at the knees and takes a deep enough breath that his shoulders visibly rise with the inhale. When he exhales, he shifts quickly, spinning on one heel and sends the dagger soaring through the air. It passes easily through the largest hoop and sinks into the left portion of the bullseye of the corresponding target.

The crowd claps for him but when Clarke presses her fingers to her lips and releases a loud whistle, Lexa turns and arches a brow at her. Clarke can do little more than grin but Lexa seems to take even that as a challenge. She takes up Javas’s position once he steps aside, her back to the targets just as his had been, and Clarke figures they must be matching throws to make the game fair. She takes only a moment to ready herself before she whirls and throws the dagger so hard that it hisses as it splits the air, and Clarke is reminded of the toss that sent a blade screaming into Quint’s arm and saved her life.

_Jomp em op en yu jomp ai op._

The dagger glides through the hoop, and sinks straight into the center of the largest target. As everyone erupts in cheers, Clarke feels her entire body flush with heat when Lexa tilts her head in her direction and smirks. She can barely summon voice let alone whistle so Clarke just ducks her head and bites her lip around a smile. It seems to do the trick, though, because Lexa’s spine straightens and she practically struts away from the throwing point so that Javas can set up for his second toss.

The second hoop and target are slightly smaller than the first though still rather large and a little farther away. Neither Lexa nor Javas seem concerned by the challenge, and Javas gets into position. He crouches low, lines up his throw, and then flings his second dagger forward from the side. It slips through the hoop horizontally and into the center of the target with a thud.

Lexa matches his toss easily, her own dagger sinking in just to the left of Javas’s and closer to the central point of the bullseye. She clucks her tongue cockily at Javas, who merely laughs and bows his head before setting up his final toss.

The third hoop and target are quite a bit smaller and Clarke doesn’t know how either one of them are going to manage to send a dagger through without clipping part of the hoop.

Javas stands at full height and takes his time lining up his toss, and the crowd roars with laughter when Lexa playfully pretends to yawn, patting at her mouth. Clarke can’t help but to laugh along, because this playful side of Lexa that has been blooming since their first steps into Polis is more than she had ever imagined she would see from the Commander, and it is alive and young and _beautiful_.

When Javas finally makes the throw, the dagger rips through the air, but just as Clarke feared, it clips the top of the hoop, which sends it off course and tumbling to the ground. He lets out a laughing groan and presses his hand to his face as he steps aside to let his niece have a go at it.

Lexa is unwavering, strong, and solid. She stands like a statue, though her eyes are calculating as she stares ahead at the small hoop and target. She lines up her toss and when she releases the dagger with a beautiful arc of her arm and flick of her wrist, it slips through the hoop in a quick spiral and thuds into the target at the top of the bullseye.

Javas and Lexa link arms, fists connecting in a tight hold for a moment, as the crowd cheers for their victorious Commander. She waves away the offer of a prize and locks fists in the same manner she had with Javas with the man running the game. A wooden stein is thrust toward Lexa and she nods in thanks to the young man providing it before taking a swig of the drink and turning to move through the crowd.

Clarke’s eyes don’t leave her once. When Lexa reaches her, bright eyes and smug smile, Clarke shakes her head and laughs. “Impressive, Commander,” she says.

Lexa tilts her head forward. “Thank you, Clarke.” She then points her stein toward the game. “Would you like to try?”

Clarke snorts. “Maybe something easier.”

She is surprised when another wooden stein is pushed toward _her_ , Clarke catching it with fumbling hands and spilling some of the liquid over her fingers. She looks up at Javas as she sucks the liquid off her fingers, noting that it is some sort of alcohol, and he grins as he says, “A drink first.”

“Thank you, Javas,” she laughs, and then looks back to Lexa only to find the Commander frozen in place, lips parted, and eyes fixed on Clarke’s mouth as it presses to her sticky fingers. Clarke flushes and clears her throat, dropping her hand to her side again. She and Lexa both shuffle awkwardly in place when Javas looks between them, lets out a booming laugh, and walks off into the crowd.

* * *

It takes Clarke two tries but she manages to land all three rings on the corresponding rods sticking up from the ground, and she has to stop herself from jumping up and down like an excited child when she does. The woman overseeing the game offers her any prize of her choosing, and Clarke can’t help taking an excruciatingly long time to choose. There is just _so_ much to pick from.

When she does finally make a choice, she taps her finger atop the item, and the woman smiles and hands it over. It is a small braided bracelet with green and white beads woven into the cord, and a tiny tree charm dangling from one end. Clarke holds it up to show Lexa, and the Commander nods as she looks it over.

“To match your ring,” she says, pointing toward the wooden tree ring that Clarke has not removed from her finger since the day Lexa slid it on.

Clarke smiles but shakes her head and steps forward. Lexa’s eyes shine with her surprise when Clarke reaches for her hand and clasps the bracelet around her wrist. “Now I have something to give you,” she says, her other hand resting atop her chest over the blue stone of the necklace Lexa had given her.

Lexa takes a deep breath and lets it out in a staggered sigh that Clarke feels stutter across her chin and cheek. “Thank you,” she whispers, and it is too quiet for Clarke to hear but she reads the words on Lexa’s lips and gives her wrist a light squeeze before letting go.

* * *

They eat roasted boar, washed down with the smooth burn of alcohol, and Clarke’s stomach feels full and heavy. Her head is dizzy with the effects of the alcohol, stronger than she expected, but she is incredibly content.

Clarke points toward the combined stands overflowing with wooden mugs and steins once they finish their drinks. “Do you want another?”

Lexa declines with a single shake of her head. “I have had enough,” she says and Clarke laughs.

“You’ve only had one.”

Nodding, Lexa says, “One is enough. I rarely have more than one and that is indulgent.”

“One isn’t even enough for you to feel it.” Then again, Clarke’s head is hazy with a light buzz, so she knows one is enough to feel _something,_ but maybe Lexa has more of a tolerance because she doesn’t seem affected at all.

“It would be unwise for me to dull my senses. I am still the Commander, Clarke, even in celebration.”

Clarke bumps her shoulder before stepping in closer. Her voice comes out lower than intended when she asks, “So you can’t have fun?”

“I am enjoying myself,” Lexa says, and Clarke grins. “I do not need drink to do so, and I would rather be present than numb.”

“Present for the festival?” Clarke asks, and she doesn’t miss the way Lexa’s gaze darts quickly down to her lips before snapping back up. It sends a wave of heat rippling over her skin and through her gut.

Lexa licks her own lips. “For _everything_.”

“Everything?” Clarke challenges. “All the time?”

Lexa tilts her head to the side but then simply nods.

“Even pain?”

Lexa’s lips purse together and she arches a brow. Her voice is a throaty rasp that makes Clarke’s stomach flip when she asks, “Do you plan to inflict pain on me tonight, Clarke?”

Clarke swallows thickly but it does little to budge the lump that has suddenly formed in her throat. She doesn’t think her voice will work so she settles on shaking her head in answer, and a small smile spawns on Lexa’s lips.

“Pleasure then?”

Clarke mentally scolds herself for the choked squeak that she doesn’t quite manage to prevent from escaping her throat. Her body floods with heat that she can feel burning her alive from her ears down to her toes, and Clarke has the sudden urge to dart away into the shadows so that the dim lights of the festival can’t shine like spotlights on her undoubtedly red face. She can do little more than smack Lexa’s arm when the Commander can no longer contain her triumphant grin.

* * *

As they make their way through the festival, Clarke laughs at the countless children sprinting around and sporting Lexa’s traditional Commander war paint.

“There are a lot of little Commanders out here,” Clarke says, and Lexa grins. “I hope one of them doesn’t challenge you for your crown.”

Lexa lets out a soft, raspy chuckle. “You would be surprised by their abilities,” she says. “I was a child still when I first became Commander.”

Clarke aches with the words and steps in a bit closer to Lexa. Their shoulders brush and she feels Lexa’s lift with the breath she takes in and then lets out in a sigh. “They love you,” Clarke says quietly, leaning in a bit so that Lexa can hear her.

She is unsurprised when Lexa says nothing and offers only a firm nod. Clarke doesn’t move to replace the distance between them again and neither does Lexa. Their shoulders remain pressed together as they walk, their hands brushing every few steps.

Lexa points out various people to her and tells her about their occupations and reputations and clans.

Clarke learns about Iona, Polis’s resident storyteller. She is one of the oldest among all the clans and still remembers ‘the beginning of the end’ as Lexa puts it. Iona tells stories of the war’s immediate aftermath, of buildings crumbling around them and nature springing up where mankind had previously destroyed it. She tells tales of the tree spirits taking back their land and making it wilder and wieldier than before.

Lexa tells her about Thad, a fisherman from the Seaside Clan, who stands at a grill and serves up fish filets to the people of Polis. He is a master of knots and once netted a fish so massive in size that it was able to feed his entire clan for over a week. He is a living legend among his people.

Then there is Cyrus, a juggler from the Ice Nation, who can juggle almost anything thrown at him. He stands with a crowd of his own, tossing and circling daggers and cups through the air while children gape up at him.

Clarke even learns a bit more about Algor, the mute warrior who had escorted them to Polis. He is a warrior of the Woods Clan but also a stylist. Clarke almost doesn’t believe Lexa when she says that Algor is responsible for most of the braids they wear, including her own, but sure enough, they pass by Algor settled into a braiding booth where people are lining up to have detailed braids woven into their hair.

Clarke is amazed by all the information Lexa spills forth, and she is even more amazed by the admiration that adorns Lexa’s voice when she speaks of her people. Her love for them is immense, as potent as Clarke’s love for her own people, and it is audible and visible in all that Lexa becomes within the walls of Polis. It is like seeing an entirely different person pressed into someone familiar and Clarke finds it oddly comforting and incredibly beautiful.

She wants to tell Lexa as much, wants to tell her how much it means to her to see this side of the Commander, but just as she opens her mouth to speak, Clarke feels a hand slip into hers and tug her to the side.

She turns to see a young man smiling at her and pulling her along in a line of people bouncing around through the crowds to the heavy beat of the nearby drummers. Clarke stumbles along behind him for a moment before catching onto the rhythm and skipping along with the others. She glances back and sees Lexa through the crowd, chuckling and shaking her head as she watches Clarke dance away from her. When the line swings back around, Clarke throws out her arm and latches onto Lexa’s hand, pulling her into the line.

The entire line cheers when they realize the Commander has joined in, and Clarke melts a little at the way Lexa blushes in the low lights and shakes her head but falls into rhythm and lets Clarke pull her along anyway. Clarke’s heart races at the sight, at the feel of having her hand locked with Lexa’s, at the feel of her body flooding with a beat, and of her cheeks aching from smiling, and of her voice hoarse from laughter. Her stomach clenches and her throat goes dry and her eyes prick with tears, and Clarke realizes that she is happy.

She is happy and her head is clear, and when she closes her eyes, she sees only Lexa and hears only music and feels only her own feet pounding against the ground. There are no bodies burning behind her eyes and there is no blood painting her palms crimson, and everyone and _everything_ is so incredibly, wondrously _alive_.

Clarke squeezes Lexa’s hand until she knows it has to hurt but Lexa doesn’t let it show. She only adjusts their hands so that her fingers are twined with Clarke’s and squeezes back just as hard, and Clarke thinks this is what it feels like to belong. This is what it feels like to not only survive but to _live_.

* * *

The crowd has significantly thinned and the moon is high in the sky when they finally wind their way back to Lexa’s house. The house is quiet and seemingly empty as they make their way in silence up the staircase. Their fingertips brush together in the dark hallway and Clarke lets her pinky hook around Lexa’s index finger. It is merely a whisper of touch but it is soothing and thrilling all the same.

When they reach the end of the hall, Lexa immediately turns toward Clarke’s door. Her hand is on the knob when Clarke stops her with a gentle tug on her finger where their hands are still just barely entwined. Lexa turns to look at her, and Clarke feels her heart begin to thud rapidly beneath her ribs.

“Wait,” she whispers, glancing toward Lexa’s bedroom door.

Lexa’s brows furrow but she releases the doorknob and turns fully toward Clarke. “Are you all right?”

Clarke nods and slips her hand more fully into Lexa’s to give it a light squeeze. “Just wait,” she whispers again. “Wait here.”

Slipping into Lexa’s bedroom, Clarke takes a deep breath and makes her way over to the sheet-covered wall on the opposite side of the room. She climbs up on her chair and pulls the dagger’s tip from the wall to release one corner of the sheet before scooting the chair to the far end so that she can take down the other. When the sheet falls fully to the ground, Clarke stares at her work in the dark. She can see very little except for what the moonlight dusts over, but every stroke is embedded in her memory and in her bones, and she doesn’t need light to see the life she has given it.

Clarke makes quick work of lighting the candles she keeps crowded around the wall so that the mural slowly flickers into full view, and her heart begins to race again. She can only hold her breath as she takes slow steps back to the bedroom door and opens it just a crack.

“Close your eyes,” she whispers.

Lexa seems to understand now what is about to happen so she does as she is told and steps forward until Clarke’s hand wraps around her wrist. Clarke carefully leads Lexa into the room and over toward the wall.

Her nerves are hot and alive beneath her flesh. “You’re not peeking, are you?”

“No,” Lexa says, and Clarke sees the corner of her mouth tug up just a bit. Lexa’s hand then slips over the top of Clarke’s and squeezes. “Breathe, Clarke.”

Clarke breathes deeply and audibly, and releases it in a rush of air that scatters the hair draped over Lexa’s shoulder. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I just … I hope you like it.”

Lexa smiles, eyes still closed. “I will have to see it in order to tell you if I do.”

“Right,” Clarke says, clearing her throat and letting out a croaky laugh. She ushers Lexa a little closer to the wall before letting go of her arm and stepping back. She takes another deep breath before shakily whispering, “You can open your eyes now.”

Clarke watches as Lexa’s eyes slowly open, and when they lock onto the wall in front of her, Lexa’s lips part around a small gasp. Clarke takes another step back and then another. She moves until she is across the room, wanting to give Lexa space and time to absorb the images before her.

The once-bare wall now seems almost alive, overgrown and pulsing with the energy of a massive moonlit forest stretching nearly across its entirety. The greens and browns of countless trees blur and wind and soar across its expanse, creating haloes of earthen giants around pieces of Lexa pulled from quiet observations and confessions and memories Clarke has woven seamlessly together with color.

The ancient stone of a bridge that now lay in ruins stands whole amidst the trees, stretching out from the left side of the mural, and a lone warrior graces its surface. Anya sits atop a midnight black steed, plucked from Clarke’s memory of their first meeting, and emerging from the wood like a daring dream. Her back is rigid, proud, and her hair falls over her shoulders in soft brown waves. Her eyes, ringed by clouds of war paint, are fierce and promising, and her body, encased in armor, is fit to conquer. She is alive in the forest as it embraces her, alive and strong and eternal.

A brilliant blue paints the forest bright and shining where it grows up and out from the bottom of the wall, the glowing mosses and flowers springing up over gray boulders and dark trunks. Standing amidst the effulgence is the shadowed outline of a little girl, hair wild and encasing her small body like the moss encases the trees. Her hands press against the luminous souls of the forest, and small, bright white letters bubble up in spirals from her lips to spell a single word extending toward the treetops.

_Greatness._

Stretching out to the right and encased almost entirely in shadow but for gentle beams of gray and white moonlight is the solid silhouette of Gustus. His long braided hair and beard brace around the hard, strong angles of his face. His profile hides amongst the trees, a silent, steady protector. He is everlasting, as solid and constant as the shelter of the wood.

The forest grows in and around stark black letters, large and seared into the center of the mural like a brand. Roots and vines wind around the letters and Clarke watches as Lexa traces her fingers lightly over their path.

_DEATH IS NOT THE END_

A towering representation of Lexa herself springs up from the top of the words, centered atop the root-covered phrase. It is her body from the waist up, back facing outward so that her face and front are not visible in the painting. An empty sheath is strapped to her back and intricate braids fall in waves over her armored shoulders. One arm is thrust upward, unsheathed sword splitting the forest and reaching toward the sky. Roots and vines spiral around the moonlit blade, stretching up from the trees around the Commander and extending into a dark and star-studded sky hanging delicately overhead.

Costia’s name is spelled out in winding branches that weave through the upper forest and around the Commander’s shining sword. She is a part of the forest, her precious name composed of powerful boughs and made immortal in the deep blending greens and browns of the surrounding weald. She is infinite.

Clarke shifts nervously from foot to foot as she watches Lexa walk along the mural, silent and touching every inch, running her fingers slowly over the colorful surface. She itches to say something, anything, a _million_ things—explain or defend or simply gush about every little inch being grazed and absorbed. The silence is driving her mad, allowing her insecurities to grow and abound. It has always been a nerve-wracking ordeal to share her art with other people, to expose the things that whisper inside her veins and out through her fingertips. Sharing a piece of this magnitude, though, a piece she has poured hours of sweat and scrutiny and soul into makes Clarke feel like she is teetering on a crumbling ledge that could send her spiraling down to her demise any second, and all she wants is for Lexa to _feel_ this piece as much as Clarke felt it and still feels it.

She stares at the back of Lexa’s head from across the room and aches to fill the daunting silence thickening the air around and between them. She wants to spew and stress how long it took her to mix the perfect, brilliant shade of blue for the luminous forest and how, at first, it just wouldn’t _glow_ for her; how she eventually managed to make it shine. She wants to wax poetic about blending and fading and the way the brush feels in her hand when it glides over a surface and pulls passionate little pieces of her up through her pores. She wants to recount the number of times she sketched and re-sketched the branches curling and curving to form Costia’s name before she ever applied paint, and how she made Javas scratch her name out in the sand by the ocean so that she wouldn’t misspell it. She wants to whisper all the ways she cried when she painted Anya because she can still hear her last breath like it has been seared into the hollows of her ears.

She wants to tell Lexa about the love that went into this painting, but Clarke hopes more than anything that those words don’t need to be uttered at all. She hopes Lexa knows, hopes she can _feel_ it in all the ways that Clarke still feels it swirling around inside.

But Lexa never moves beyond the motion of her hands dusting over every inch of the mural, and she never says a word, and when Clarke can’t stand the silence any longer, she clears her throat and quietly does her best to explain the things bubbling up between her ribs.

“I haven’t been able to be anything but angry,” she says, and her voice is barely above a whisper but she knows Lexa can hear every word, “angry and sad and broken since my dad died and I … I don’t know. Holding onto all of that pain and anger, it sometimes felt like it would rip me apart, like I wouldn’t survive it.”

Clarke’s voice cracks and she lets out a sigh. She shuffles in place, knotting her fingers together in front of her. “I know you know what that feels like, and I know you struggle with it even though you like to act like you don’t feel anything at all.”

“I was there when he was floated,” she continues, her eyes stinging and her throat tight, “and since then, I’ve only had that one image stuck in my mind—his death. I just kept seeing it over and over and over, and I couldn’t get it out of my head.”

Clarke takes a step toward Lexa when she sees her lean forward and press her forehead against the wall, her hands splayed wide and braced against it. “But when I painted him,” she whispers as she takes another step forward and then another, “something changed. Suddenly he wasn’t floating anymore. He wasn’t gone.”

She stops at the end of Lexa’s bed where it rests in the center of the room and leans against one of the large bedposts. Her heart feels swollen and pained, and her throat is so tight that it hurts to swallow but she keeps talking because that’s all she _can_ do—fill the silence. “He was on the ground, and he was happy, and he was _alive_ , and that’s what I see now when I close my eyes and I think of him.”

Clarke closes her eyes when she hears Lexa let out a shaky breath. “I wanted you to have that, Lexa,” she whispers. “I wanted you to be able to close your eyes and see them, see _yourself_ , like this—beautiful and … and timeless.” Her voice drops until it is hardly more than breath, and in a sigh, she adds, “Like the forest.”

Clarke startles when she feels fingertips suddenly brush across her cheek, and when she opens her eyes, she thinks her chest might concave and crumble around her heart. Lexa stands in front of her, and her eyes are wet and glossy in the candlelight, full and unhidden. Tears track her cheeks and Clarke can feel Lexa’s fingers trembling against her jaw.

“You honor me,” Lexa breathes into the silence.

The words sear into Clarke’s skin and stir in her soul, and something shifts inside her. Something finally falls into place, and she _aches_ because she is so full with this night and with this moment. She aches because she feels more alive than she can ever recall feeling in her life. She aches because the girl who doesn’t cry is crying, and Clarke thinks she is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

It feels right when her fingers slip down Lexa’s arm and over her chest, when they curl into the material of her shirt and pull her in, like Chess games and hot baths and charcoal pressing firm to paper; like understanding and letting go and forgiving. And when she presses her lips to Lexa’s in a wet, trembling kiss, Clarke thinks it feels a little like adventure and a lot like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Jomp em op en yu jomp ai op." - "Attack her and you attack me."


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the incredible outpouring of love for the previous chapter. That was amazing, and I appreciate it so much. I apologize for the delay on this chapter. My grandfather passed and I have been dealing with that, and it hasn't been easy.
> 
> I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "Colorblind" by Counting Crows, for anyone who is interested. I hope you all enjoy this chapter. XO-Chrmdpoet

The kiss is gentle, a whisper of cracked and quivering flesh dampened by tears. Breath is suspended in a single press that stretches on until Clarke’s lungs ache, and she sucks in a sharp breath through her nose before pushing in deeper, more firmly. Lexa’s throaty response is a whimper lost inside a sob that Clarke feels vibrate between her teeth as she steps in closer, pressing their bodies together.

Clarke’s fingers, curled into the material of Lexa’s shirt, rest just above a noticeably stuttering heart, and Lexa’s hand trembles against the line of Clarke’s jaw. She can feel Lexa’s tears against her cheeks and nose, mingling with her own, and Clarke thinks she has never experienced anything as intimate as this kiss. She has never known anything so delicate, like she and Lexa are just broken bits and bodies timidly trying to press their pieces together in the hopes of making something new and _whole_ again.

It is novel yet familiar, calm and comfortable and slow but also thrilling, and Clarke feels it _everywhere_. It ripples over every inch of her, dives deep into her solemn shadows and quiet spaces and stirs up her soul until she is dizzy and intoxicated with it. It is sad and soft and sublime and so many things that Clarke thinks maybe contradict one another but still somehow make sense.

She opens her mouth, just enough to wrap more fully around Lexa’s bottom lip. When she teases her tongue across the pouty curve, she feels Lexa shudder against her, and then the hand cupped around her jaw slips down to slide across the expanse of her back. Lexa wraps around her, hands gripping at her back and waist through her shirt, and Clarke is reminded of the night they stood like sad, lonely children in the open doorway of this room, clinging to one another and not wanting to let go.

Clarke sighs against Lexa’s lips and pulls back just enough to take in her tear-stained cheeks and smudged face paint. She reaches up and cups her hands around Lexa’s cheeks, swiping her thumbs through the wet tracks that continue to run. Lexa slowly opens her eyes and lets out a shaky breath that puffs against Clarke’s face.

Lexa is beautiful even like this—messy and smudged and trembling in the candlelight. Clarke commits the sight to memory, every raw and riveting inch seeping in and taking hold and itching at her fingertips, a demand to be recreated in paint and pencil and dreams. Lexa looks as graceful and brilliant as ever, but she is also small and somber and lovely and scared, and Clarke wants everything about this moment and this experience, whatever it might become, to be slow and careful and curative.

“Is this okay?” she asks, hands still cupped around Lexa’s damp cheeks.

Lexa says nothing and instead answers with a nod that nudges her nose against Clarke’s. With arms wrapped fully around Clarke, Lexa pulls her closer until it feels like they are trying to press their two bodies into one. She reclaims Clarke’s lips with the same soft hunger she had in their first kiss, the same soft hunger she keeps in her eyes and in her touch every time she and Clarke share the same spaces.

When Lexa’s tongue presses at her lips, a quiet moan stutters up from Clarke’s throat and she melts against her. She opens her mouth to allow entrance and kisses Lexa fully and deeply, her hands slipping up from wet cheeks to thick hair. Her fingers tangle in the soft strands and braids and scratch at Lexa’s scalp, and Clarke nearly comes undone at the throaty whine that Lexa releases against her lips.

She feels the bed post push between her shoulder blades as Lexa presses into her, and the two touches—one rough and one molten—make for a heady sensation that makes Clarke feel flushed and achy. She slides her hands down from Lexa’s hair, wanting to feel more of her, wanting her closer, impossibly closer.

Clarke dips her hands under the loose material at the back of Lexa’s shirt and revels in the thrill that throbs in her veins and between her legs when she touches the warm flesh of Lexa’s lower back. Lexa jolts against her, bowing forward at the touch, and it only makes Clarke throb harder. She slides her hands around from Lexa’s back and skirts over prominent hipbones before slowly pulling the front of Lexa’s shirt free from where it is tucked into her pants. Lexa gasps against her lips and presses in closer, and the movement urges Clarke to tug at the shirt’s thin white material again.

“Can I take this off?” she whispers, and she feels Lexa’s stomach quiver against her fingertips in response.

Lexa stalls mid-kiss as if struck silent and frozen, and Clarke thinks maybe she has pushed too much too quickly. It is only a beat, though, before Lexa licks her lips, takes a step back to allow space, and nods. She makes quick work of her own strappy sleeves, unraveling the strips to bare her arms. She allows Clarke to finish, and Clarke eagerly slips her hands more fully under the shirt. She slowly slides the material up and over Lexa’s head before letting it fall silently to the floor, and the air in the room suddenly feels too thick for her to breathe properly.

Clarke’s gaze drops to absorb the newly revealed flesh. Lexa is bare before her but for the bindings covering her chest. She is heavily marked, thin white and tan lines decorating her shoulders and chest and stomach like stars pressed into the smooth sky, and Clarke traces from mark to mark with her fingers. Some are quite large while others are smaller, more felt than seen, and some are smooth while others are bubbled up beneath her fingers like the strikes seared into Lexa’s shoulder; a tally counting across her collarbone. Clarke makes constellations on Lexa’s skin, from starry scar to scar, and Lexa stands still and open, allowing the study.

Her constellations weave through and around pictures and symbols inked into Lexa’s body. Clarke wonders how many stories are depicted in Lexa’s tattoos and in her scars. How much is being whispered beneath her fingertips?

Clarke makes wishes on her homemade constellations, wishes for herself and wishes for Lexa. She thinks maybe someday she will whisper those wishes against Lexa’s skin.

She feels Lexa’s hands move to her waist, feels thin fingers rub at the hem of her shirt, and when Clarke glances up, she sees Lexa visibly swallow. Clarke follows the slow motion with her gaze before fixating on Lexa’s barely parted lips as the Commander raggedly whispers, “And yours?”

Clarke doesn’t hesitate to nod because the room somehow suddenly feels sun-scorched and blazing and her skin is prickling with the heat and with the thought of Lexa’s touch. She lifts her arms up as Lexa pulls her shirt from her body and then they are both bare but for their bindings, and Clarke finds it to be the strangest sensation but it is like having a weight lifted from her shoulders. She is hot and throbbing and _alive_ , but simply _being_ with Lexa like this, removing their barriers, is like diving head first into the cold current of the river. There is something so soothing and cleansing about it.

Clarke takes a deep breath as she watches Lexa’s gaze flit down her body and then she steps in again, eliminating the space between them little by little. She presses her hands to Lexa’s stomach and watches her eyes flicker closed before stepping in further and wrapping her body around Lexa’s. When their skin touches and rubs together, Clarke lets out a shaky sigh and melts.

She runs her hands up Lexa’s back, scarred and sinewy, and buries her face in the crook of her neck. Lexa is warm and trembling as they press together in a gentle embrace at the foot of her bed, and Clarke closes her eyes because everything about this moment and this silent embrace and their bodies partially bare and flush together feels so incredibly good. Lips press to her shoulder and then to the side of her neck, and then Lexa burrows in much as Clarke has done, and Clarke is surprised to feel moisture against her skin.

She pulls back and reaches for Lexa’s cheeks, finds her eyes glossed and leaking again, and Clarke doesn’t ask. Instead, she wipes through the tears and kisses the broken trails left behind.

Lexa sighs between Clarke’s palms and whispers, “Be with me, Clarke,” and Clarke’s chest clenches painfully at the words. She feels her throat close and her eyes sting, and she nods against Lexa’s lips as she leans in to kiss her, fully, deeply, offering herself up with wet lips and tremulous fingers.

“Like this,” Lexa breathes, fingers tapping over the naked flesh of Clarke’s back. “Nothing more.”

Clarke understands. Lexa doesn’t want any barriers between them either. She is overwhelmed and vulnerable, and Clarke thinks maybe she just wants to be unfettered with her, bare and open and held close. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that, just skin pressed to skin, intimate and innocent and soothing. Clarke wonders how long Lexa has ached for someone to hold her, if she has ever ached for Clarke to be the one to do so; ached for such a thing while sharing a bed with Clarke all these nights. She knows Lexa would never ask to be held.

Lexa shifts them and then Clarke feels the backs of her knees hit the foot of Lexa’s bed, and she drops onto the mattress at Lexa’s urging. Clarke holds her breath at the sight of Lexa humbling herself before her, dropping to her knees and reaching for Clarke’s boots. She pulls them off carefully, slowly, taking time to rub soothing circles into the bottoms of Clarke’s feet, and something about the action makes Clarke’s eyes water and her heart swell.

She pulls Lexa up and into a gentle kiss before switching their positions. Clarke kisses Lexa’s clothed knees as she unlaces her tall boots, and when Clarke glances up, she finds Lexa watching her with such tenderness in her eyes. The black smudges marring the space around her eyes and running down her cheeks draw Clarke’s attention, and when she pulls Lexa’s boots free, she kisses her forehead and then disappears into the bathroom.

Clarke wets a washcloth in the dark bathroom and then returns to Lexa, still settled at the foot of her bed and washed in candlelight. Her head is turned, eyes raking over Clarke’s mural again, and Clarke wonders how many tears the painting will pull from the Commander, how much release it will offer her.

Clarke cleans Lexa’s face with gentle swipes of the washcloth, and Lexa stares at her like she is a revelation. It makes it difficult for Clarke to breathe. When Lexa’s face is clean and clear again, they remove their pants so that they are both in only their underwear and then crawl onto the bed together.

They tangle atop the fur blankets, legs wrapping together and fingers lacing between their chests, but they keep just enough distance between them to see each other. Clarke’s gaze shifts down to Lexa’s torso again and she takes in the various images depicted on her flesh. Perhaps some are merely art for art’s sake, she thinks—just pretty pictures for a pretty girl—but then, Clarke _knows_ Lexa. There is reason in her blood and purpose in her bones. She is a carefully crafted composition, always cunning, always calculating. She would have chosen slowly and with great care, each tattoo selected to express something important or unique to her.

Clarke runs her fingers over the large tattoo on Lexa’s upper right arm, its intricate pattern like a maze beneath her soft exploration. It is composed of two pieces, the bottom mirroring the top, and Clarke is about to ask if it holds meaning when Lexa answers as if reading her mind.

“Unity and reflection,” the Commander whispers, and Clarke catches her watery gaze for only a moment before turning her eyes back to the ink.

She touches the gentle angles and arches of small wings, silhouettes of birds fluttering across Lexa’s ribs. They are just visible below her covered right breast and fly upward until they disappear beneath her bindings.

“Grace,” Lexa murmurs. “Majesty. Vigilance.”

Clarke bends to press a kiss to one of the birds, bracing a hand around Lexa’s hip. She hears Lexa’s intake of breath and smiles against her skin. She kisses there once more, a gentle brush of lips and breath, and then pulls back to continue her exploration. Clarke traces over the visible edges of the tattoos on Lexa’s left side and Lexa shifts onto her back and tucks her arm behind her head to make them visible. There are four thick circles lined neatly down her side, each containing a symbol. The first is a tree. The second is made up of two horizontal lines stacked atop each other and curling at their ends—a gust of wind, Clarke thinks. The third appears to be a wave, and the fourth is a torch.

“Earth,” Lexa says as Clarke presses a finger to the tree.

“Wind,” Clarke says before Lexa can continue. “Water and fire.” She presses her finger to each one as she says the words and then looks up to Lexa for confirmation. “The elements.”

Lexa blinks and gives a slow nod. The corner of her mouth tugs with a soft smile and Clarke leans up to kiss that smile soundly. “They represent much,” Lexa tells her. She presses her own finger to the tree symbol. “The tree for earth but also for growth, wisdom, and endurance.”

Her finger slides down to the next circle. “Air,” she says, “and direction. Swiftness and change.”

“Water,” she says when she touches the symbol of the wave. “Purity, vitality, and power.”

“And fire?” Clarke asks as Lexa’s finger shifts down to the torch.

“Guiding light. Strength.” Lexa catches Clarke’s hand in hers and rubs gently at her fingers, holds her gaze as she whispers, “Passion.”

Clarke’s heart thumps against her ribs as Lexa looks at her, looks _into_ her, and shares her pieces and parts so openly. Her words are quiet and soft but heavy in a way that feels almost tangible to Clarke.

“All of these,” Lexa whispers, “I must possess, be, or provide for my people.”

The urge to kiss every image, every inch, sparks in Clarke’s chest and tingles on her lips. She aches to soothe unspoken pains, lift weights she knows are far too heavy for either of them to bear despite how they always try. Clarke realizes that there are parts of her that still want to crack and crumble beneath the weight, want to let it break and destroy her so that she can start again.

She squeezes Lexa’s hand and closes her eyes and imagines it is possible for them to strip themselves of this life and its heavy burdens. She imagines they can plant themselves somewhere new, somewhere untainted, somewhere that isn’t haunted by things that neither of them will ever be able to un-see or undo. She imagines that they can be different people with different lives and different responsibilities, and she wonders if they would still find each other in those lives, in _any_ lives. She wonders if every version of her would ache to know Lexa, to grow Lexa inside her soul, because in every life, a part of her would want to be Lexa’s home.

“Clarke,” Lexa murmurs, and Clarke snaps back to reality, back to the moment, back to Lexa’s sad, beautiful eyes and chapped lips. “I am still the same person I was before.”

Clarke leans in and presses a soft kiss to a wet drop on Lexa’s chin before pulling back and whispering, “What do you mean?”

Lexa’s voice is raw and ragged, painted with the night’s heavy emotions like the wall is painted with her lovely ghosts. She rolls on her side and scoots closer so that she can rest her forehead against Clarke’s. “You enjoy me here,” she whispers, “in Polis, but I am not changed. I am who I have always been.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out in a shaky sigh. “I am the same person who sentenced Finn to die, and I am the same person who allowed the sacrifice of our people at TonDC.”

“Lexa,” Clarke croaks, dizzy with the memories and the images that jump forward at the words, but Lexa shakes her head to stop her from interrupting.

Her voice drops to a breathy whisper. “I am the same person who sacrificed _you_ at the mountain.”

Clarke takes a deep breath that burns in her lungs and she is surprised when Lexa bends to press her lips to the flesh of her chest, just above the swell of her clothed breast. It is as if she knows, as if she is trying to soothe the pain.

“I will always belong to my people, Clarke,” Lexa says, “no matter how I might wish to belong to you.”

Clarke’s heart clenches and stutters and her mind swims with the image of Lexa’s eyes in the glowing forest, with the sound of her soft voice whispering, “Yours.” Her throat feels painfully dry, her thick swallow is like a jagged rock shredding her esophagus, and she shifts back so that she can better look into Lexa’s eyes. “I know,” she whispers, and she does.

“If ever a choice must be made, I will choose my people.”

Clarke closes her eyes and squeezes Lexa’s hand tighter. “I know,” she whispers again.

She tries to fight the wobble of her bottom lip, the stinging in her eyes, when she feels Lexa shift again and then chapped lips press to her forehead. “And I will always be a part of your pain, Clarke.”

Clarke pulls Lexa closer, slipping her arms more fully around her and hugging their bodies tightly together. She buries her face in Lexa’s hair and breathes in her scent—forest and fire smoke and sweat and _life_. Her entire body melts against Lexa’s at the comforting smell, at the feel of Lexa’s body pressed against her own like a warm haven of flesh and familiarity, and Clarke knows that no one else will ever have this effect on her. No one else will ever thrum in her veins and echo in her soul the way Lexa can, the way Lexa always does. No one else will ever _know_ her this way, with such precious clarity.

She nuzzles the warm skin of Lexa’s neck and brushes her lips along its slope. “You will also always be the only one who can soothe it.”

Lexa pulls back and captures Clarke’s lips with her own, and Clarke whimpers into the kiss. It is heavy with all the things they might always feel and might never say; a strange combination of sad and hopeful.

When they pull apart, just an inch, Lexa breathes deep and whispers, “Will you still want me when I am _Heda_?”

Clarke cups her cheek and frowns. “You are always the Commander, Lexa.”

Lexa closes her eyes and lets out a soft sigh. “When I am stained with war and blood,” she whispers, “when I reek of fresh sacrifice, will you want me then, Clarke?”

Clarke hates the way Lexa’s voice cracks and breaks around the words, as if there are pleas and earthquakes hidden in her throat. She understands what Lexa wants, what she needs to know. Will Clarke still want her when they are torn from the haven of Polis? Will she still want her when they are no longer soft and pliant and sharing the same bed, but rather rigid and fierce, decisive and even destructive? Will she still want her when they can no longer be just Clarke and Lexa, but Sky Commander and _Heda_? Will she still want her if they must choose their people over each other, if they must betray one another, if they must sacrifice everything they feel in their blood and in their bones for each other?

Clarke kisses Lexa’s forehead, her cheeks, her chin, her lips. She tangles a hand in her now slightly bed-mussed hair and holds Lexa’s gaze in the soft glow of the room. “I think I will always want you, Lexa,” she whispers, and she knows it is true. Even when she tried to hate Lexa, even when she had nearly convinced herself that she _did_ , she still wanted her. A part of her always has. “Always.”

Lexa’s breath is shaky as it releases, rich with relief, and Clarke wraps around her. They tangle together again, limbs and digits laced and their faces pressed together. They are still and silent, letting the night fade around them, letting candles drown their own flames, letting morning grow outside their window, and they share breath and kisses until each press of lips becomes languid and their eyes begin to droop with sleep. Clarke feels herself drifting when Lexa’s sleepy murmur reaches her ears.

“Thank you for the painting.”

Clarke blinks and finds Lexa’s bleary gaze staring back at her. She smiles as she squeezes Lexa’s hand. “You really like it?”

Lexa nods against Clarke’s forehead and whispers, “I love it.”

That only makes Clarke’s smile grow. “I thought love was weakness,” she teases around a yawn, and Lexa nuzzles her in response before rolling over, but she doesn’t say anything.

Clarke finds a wealth of new tattoos on Lexa’s back but her eyes are drooping and she can’t bring herself to begin a new exploration. She shifts closer and wraps around Lexa’s body from behind, pressing a kiss to the back of her shoulder. Lexa’s voice is quiet and lazy when it breaks the silence again.

“I am weak, Clarke,” she whispers, and even in the haze of sleep, Clarke recognizes the quiet confession for what it truly is. She hears the words beneath the words.

_I love you._

It echoes in her mind until the world fades away.

* * *

When Clarke wakes in Lexa’s bed later in the day, she is alone and she aches at the loss. She runs her hand over the empty space where Lexa had been and finds it still warm, so she rolls onto her back and stretches her limbs as she glances around the room. Her heart jumps in her chest and a smile pulls at her lips when she sees Lexa, still bare but for her underwear, standing across the room in front of the mural with her back to Clarke.

Clarke watches as Lexa’s fingers trace over Anya’s face, and Clarke feels that familiar tug in her chest that always comes. She never manages to evade it for long, like all her ghosts are trying to pull her in and under. Now, though, it is gentler, easier. It pulls her still but pains her less.

“She slapped me in the face with a handful of mud,” Clarke murmurs into the silence, and Lexa jolts and whirls to face her.

Her brows furrow as she crosses the space between them and settles onto the edge of the bed. “What?”

“Anya,” Clarke says, and a smile pulls at her lips moments before a strangled laugh spills through. “She slapped me in the face with a handful of mud when we were escaping the mountain together.” She shifts up onto her elbow and reaches for Lexa, pulling her in and kissing her soundly on the mouth. “She said it was because I smelled but I think she just wanted me to stop talking.”

Lexa’s lips stretch with a smile and when she releases a raspy laugh that sounds like it is still heavy with sleep, Clarke can’t help but to kiss her again.

“She once pushed me into a pile of horse droppings,” Lexa says, and Clarke laughs out loud despite finding such a thing positively disgusting.

“So apparently I stunk and you smelled too good.”

Lexa grins. “I commented on her _staring_ at one of the warriors.”

Clarke chuckles and wraps her hand around Lexa’s, squeezing her fingers. When the silence settles in again, Lexa sighs and says, “Clarke, there are things we must discuss,” and Clarke wonders how long Lexa has been up and repeating those words in her mind, thinking about whatever discussion it is they are about to have. She thinks she knows.

“The things you’ve been avoiding telling me?” she asks. “The things that have to do with my people?”

Lexa nods, and Clarke lets out a long sigh before pushing up into a sitting position and preparing herself for whatever it is that she is about to find out. She takes comfort in Lexa’s earlier assurance that her people were at least safe.

“Okay,” she says. “What is it?”

Lexa licks her lips and clears her throat. “The council has many concerns,” she begins. “Sky People have been seen returning to the mountain, disappearing inside for long periods of time.”

“Seen?” Clarke asks. “By who?”

“My warriors,” Lexa tells her. “Scouts.”

“Okay, and what? The council is afraid that we’re going to retaliate for what happened at the mountain?”

Lexa purses her lips but gives one firm nod.

“I told you that wouldn’t happen,” Clarke says and Lexa nods again.

“I know,” she replies, “but can you be sure? You are no longer with your people, Clarke. Can you be certain they would not seek vengeance in your absence?”

Clarke’s brows furrow and her heart begins to race, because she realizes that she _doesn’t_ know. She _hopes_ but she doesn’t _know._ She has disagreed with the council members more than once, with her own mother and with Kane, on who to trust and what to do, how to act. She knows they don’t have the resources to attack, but then … Clarke’s stomach drops. Mount Weather has the resources, and her people have the knowledge and skill to use them. That is why Lexa is concerned, and Clarke cannot even reassure her, because she doesn’t actually _know._

“It is not only that, Clarke,” Lexa says, pulling Clarke’s attention back to her. “There has been talk of TonDC among the council, of our escape and survival.” She gestures between the two of them and squeezes Clarke’s hand. “The Ice Nation lost two highly regarded generals in the missile strike, and their queen believes it to have been deliberate.”

“Deliberate?” Clarke shakes her head. “Is she serious? How could we have planned for that? We don’t have missiles and the mountain men were holding our people captive. It wasn’t like we were working _with_ them.”

“I know this,” Lexa says. “The queen of the Ice Nation suggests we knew of the missile prior to our arrival in TonDC. She suggests I called for the assembly of the clan representatives, waited for your signal, and then slipped silently away with you and allowed the rest to perish.”

Clarke gapes. “Why would you _willingly plan_ to kill your people’s best generals and leaders?”

“I would not,” Lexa says, “and she knows this, but she has never harbored much respect for me or for the coalition. She believes herself more worthy of being called _Heda_ than I and will take any opportunity to attempt to prove it.”

Clarke remembers Lexa’s story about the Ice Nation’s Queen, about what she did to Costia, and her stomach churns. Her blood boils. She swallows thickly and asks, “So what does that mean?”

“It could mean many things,” Lexa tells her, and Clarke can hear the worry in her voice.

“War?”

“Yes,” she whispers. “Or she could attempt to harm me, send an assassin to murder me.” She pauses and licks her lips. Her voice cracks when she adds, “Or you.”

Their gazes lock and Clarke thinks she has never seen Lexa more haunted than she is in this moment. She knows why. Lexa fears the loss of another love, fears the suffering of someone special to her for little more than knowing her, caring about her, loving her. Lexa fears losing Clarke like she lost Costia.

“Hey,” Clarke says, squeezing Lexa’s hand, “we can handle whatever it is.” Her voice trembles with every word.

Lexa holds her gaze for a long moment before giving a soft nod and Clarke thinks it is the best she is going to get for now. She will fight for confidence and fire and ferocity later. They both can.

“So, what does that have to do with the rest of my people?”

“They are safe for now,” Lexa says, “but they could be in danger. The Ice Nation may seek vengeance on them as well. Their queen may seek to wipe out your people while they are still weak from war, or …”

“Or?”

Lexa sighs. “Or she may seek to ally herself with them and use the Sky People, and the weapons of the mountain, to wipe out mine.”

Clarke’s stomach is in knots. Her hands are sweaty and shaky as she presses them to her face and runs them through her messy and still half-braided hair. She takes a deep breath and lets it burn in her lungs. The burning doesn’t seem to stop no matter how many breaths she takes after. “So I have to talk to them,” she says and she hates the way her voice wobbles but she can’t make it stop. “I have to make sure nothing happens.” She looks up at Lexa when a hand slips over her bare knee and squeezes. When their eyes meet, Clarke knows the answer but the words tumble from her lips anyway.

“I have to go back.”


	21. Chapter 21

Clarke stands in front of the mirror and stares at herself. She has donned her old clothes but for the pieces Lexa has assured her were burned to ash, and Clarke can’t help but feel like she has redressed herself in a bitter memory, a part of her that now feels foreign and uncomfortable. Her pants sag a bit around her thighs and she has to roll down the waistband to keep them from hanging on her hips. Her old shirt lies loosely on her frame as well, though the rumpled material remains partially hidden by her jacket.

Though washed clean and mostly stainless, the material appears dirty in her reflection, tainted and turned black and crimson by the charred, bloody echoes of her body count. Clarke feels the weight of war in every thread that once clung to her body, shifted and twisted and tightened around her when she lifted her hand to put a bullet in Dante; when she reached for a lever she knew she would have to pull no matter how much it might haunt her; when she took step after step into the dizzy, deadly haze of hostility.

She shifts from foot to foot and presses her hands into tight fists, squeezing little pulses of pressure through her fingertips and scratching at her palms between each squeeze. She itches in these clothes, irritated and distressed by the way they feel against her skin and the way they glare in her reflection; the way they _remind_ her. The longer she stares, the more uncomfortable she becomes. She doesn’t recognize herself in these clothes. They don’t fit her, not her body and not her soul, or her heart, or whatever it is inside her that Clarke knows has been irrevocably _changed_ since leaving Camp Jaha. This reflection, shifting anxiously and staring intensely back at her, is nothing but a memory. She is a ghost.

Before Clarke even fully realizes what she is doing, her itching hands are yanking and clawing at the material. Her breathing rapidly becomes shallow and shaky until she is panting for air and ripping through delicate seams in her effort to jerk her shirt over her head once her jacket is on the floor. She pushes her pants off roughly and kicks them away from her, and finally she is bare again.

Clarke takes deep, gasping breaths to try to calm herself down as she stares at her reflection, at the naked parts of her flesh— _clean, clean, clean_ —and at the bindings and underwear that somehow feel more natural to her now than any of the garments she wore before. She presses her forehead to the cool pane of the mirror and sighs as the cold rapidly chases away the flush in her cheeks. She just needs a moment to catch her breath.

When her heart is no longer pounding in her ears and throat, Clarke pulls herself together and grabs a few articles of clothing from the large closet. She dresses in the simple pieces—gray pants and a lighter gray long-sleeved shirt with the necklace Lexa had given her dangling around her neck—before donning her sock wraps and boots and heading back into the main part of her room. She leaves her old clothes behind, a messy pile of painful reminders.

Clarke’s limbs feel heavy with every step she takes, every little shift of her body, like she is aching for time to slow down or stop. Maybe some part of her is. Maybe it is more than just a part. In only a short amount of time, Polis has become like home to her—new and restorative and alive. _Lexa_ has become like home, and leaving just feels too thick in Clarke’s throat and too jagged between her ribs, too twisting and too violent in her stomach. 

She drops onto the edge of her bed and stares at the bedside table, her gaze landing on the one item she has not touched since her first day in Polis. She hasn’t let it infiltrate her thoughts in as many days. Now, though, its shiny, black metal glares at her in the daylight filtering into the room, the gleam like a wicked grin that makes Clarke feel sick to her stomach.

She reaches out, her hand hovering over the weapon. Even knowing she will need it, Clarke can’t quite bring herself to touch it, to pick it up and feel its weight in her hand. Something about this feels regressive, like she is retreating back into the hardened shell of a person she had forced herself to become inside the mountain. She shakes her head to banish the thought before taking a quick, sharp breath through her nose and closing her hand around the gun.

Clarke turns her hand over and lets the hunk of metal rest atop her palm. The back of her hand is pressed against her thigh and Clarke can feel it shaking, sending vibrations into her leg. She stares down at the weapon. It had previously begun to feel like a part of her, an extension of her arm and a constant, comforting weight at her hip. Now, though, it feels foreign—clunky and heavy and too big for her hand. Like her old clothes, it doesn’t seem to fit her anymore. Clarke wonders if it ever really did, or if she and all the others had just been careless children playing with weapons that were never meant to be toys and pretending that when they pulled the triggers, the ringing in their ears was only imaginary.

“Clarke.”

Clarke shifts and catches sight of Lexa’s curious gaze as the Commander stands in the open doorway, leaning against the frame, and watches her. Releasing a shaky sigh, Clarke holds up her trembling hand, smooth black metal settled atop her open palm. She hates the weight, the way it presses and presses like it can seep into her soul through the lines in her skin. 

“You would think it would be easy,” Clarke says, letting out a raspy laugh that holds little humor and even less hope. “I’ve used this more times than I can count. I’ve loaded it and reloaded it, aimed it. I’ve fired it without hesitation. I’ve … _killed_ people.”

“Clarke,” Lexa murmurs again, pushing off the door frame to step further into the room.

Clarke swallows and it scratches down the length of her dry throat. She shakes her head and lets out a staggered huff of air. “I just can’t seem to get my hand to stop shaking.”

She feels fingers press to the top of her shoulder for a moment before Lexa swims into view in front of her, and Clarke wonders if she will ever stop being surprised by how swiftly and silently Lexa moves or by the way her touch always seems to sap the sorrow right out of Clarke’s soul.

“It is never meant to be easy, Clarke,” Lexa whispers as she drops into a crouch in front of Clarke’s knees. She reaches out and curls Clarke’s fingers closed around the gun, though Clarke notices how Lexa is careful not to touch any part of the metal herself. “We do what we must. We protect ourselves. We fight, if necessary, but never is it easy to wield a weapon.”

“It seems pretty easy for you,” Clarke says.

Lexa squeezes her knee. “You have the skill to create art, but does that mean creating art is easy?”

Clarke thinks that one over, thinks of Raven and how brilliant she is. She can build bombs and radios and talk about rocket science like she is talking about the weather, but that doesn’t mean any of those things are ever easy. It doesn’t mean they don’t require an extreme amount of skill, and focus, and effort. She thinks of Monty and how quick he is to come up with an idea or crack a code. She thinks of her mother, how fluid and confident she is in operation when people’s lives are dangling from her fingertips. There is never a moment without pressure, without weight, without anxiety, even if it is nothing more than a whisper between the ears, but this is who they are. This is what they do, so they keep going, even when it’s so hard that it hurts.

“Okay,” she whispers. “I get your point.”

Lexa stands and holds out a hand, and Clarke grabs onto it, letting the Commander pull her to her feet. When they are standing, Lexa reaches for the empty holster on the bedside table and hands it to Clarke. “It is good to know the weight of death, Clarke,” she says as Clarke attaches the holster to her hip and slides the gun into it. It is amazing how much better it makes her feel to no longer have it in her hand, even with the weight still pressing against her elsewhere. “It means you have not lost your respect for life.”

Clarke lets those words sink in and soothe her. She isn’t a ghost, isn’t all death and destruction; isn’t immune to the weight of loss or the beauty of a still beating heart. She isn’t gone.

She leans forward and presses her forehead against Lexa’s. “Are you sure you can’t come with me?”

“I doubt your people would welcome me,” Lexa says, “or be receptive to any plans they think I might have had a hand in.”

Clarke sighs because she and Lexa had already gone over this the night before but that doesn’t make it any easier. She feels compelled to ask again just to see if the answer will change despite knowing it won’t.

“The council has some concerns as well,” Lexa adds, and the way her voice lingers around the last word grabs Clarke’s attention.

She opens her eyes and pulls back. “Concerns about what?”

Clarke almost expects Lexa to brush the question off and avoid answering, but the words tumble out after only a short silence. “About your presence in Polis,” she says before averting her gaze and licking her lips. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Your sleeping arrangements.”

Clarke blinks. “My sleeping arrangements?”

Lexa gives nothing more than a firm nod, and Clarke can only gape.

“How are my sleeping arrangements any of the council’s business?” she finally manages to spit out.

“They are not,” Lexa says, “but a few here have begun to talk. Word travels quickly.”

“And?”

Lexa sighs. “They question your motives,” she says. “One has suggested that perhaps you seek to gather information for your people in order to plan an attack against mine. Another suggested that you aim to seduce me in order to make me vulnerable to attack.”

Clarke’s chest sparks with anger. “Someone actually _said_ that to you?”

“A council member’s second who was present for a meeting, yes,” Lexa tells her. “I had his tongue cut from his mouth for suggesting such weakness. He no longer presents theory out of turn.”

Clarke lets out a rough laugh, but when Lexa merely continues to stare at her, the laugh chokes down to a gurgle in her throat. “Oh,” she says. “Well, um, thanks for defending our honor, I guess.”

Lexa tilts her head forward in a graceful nod. “Of course.”

Clarke’s lips pull with a smile, because the response is so utterly Lexa that it almost makes her laugh again, even if she finds the idea of cutting out someone’s tongue a bit harsh, not to mention disgusting.

“So, your people don’t trust me,” she says after a short silence, and though she can understand it, the realization still makes her stomach clench and lurch.

“My people live by a code,” Lexa tells her, reaching forward to squeeze Clarke’s hand for only a moment before letting go again. “When we are attacked or betrayed, we demand retribution. I have assured them that _you_ do not seek to pose a threat, but your people are foreign to us and our history is already tainted with war. Our alliance was severed, so it is natural for them to anticipate retaliation. Do you understand?”

Clarke nods. She _does_ understand. Her own people have had their suspicions about Lexa and the Grounders since the beginning, and even when the alliance was going strong, so many of them still couldn’t bring themselves to trust. She wonders if the Sky People and the Grounders will ever stop looking at one another with their hands hovering over their weapons.

“So, it’s best if you don’t go with me then,” Clarke says.

“It is,” Lexa whispers, “but should you encounter any trouble, send word and I will come to your aid.”

Clarke aches to pull Lexa into a kiss at the words, but the Commander disappears before she has the chance, slipping away and out of the room. Clarke stands frozen in place, confused, until a moment later when Lexa returns with several small items. She sets the items on the bed, and Clarke barely gets a chance to look at them before Lexa begins attaching them on Clarke’s body.

She secures a metal cuff much like the one Clarke had worn on their ride to Polis to each of Clarke’s thighs and then slides a dagger through each loop on the cuffs’ sides. Clarke looks down at her legs, a dagger dangling from both sides, and then back up to Lexa.

“Is this really necessary?” she asks.

Lexa steps back and takes in the sight before locking eyes with Clarke. Her reply is a simple, one-word answer that makes Clarke want to roll her eyes and laugh at the same time. “Yes.”

“All right,” Clarke sighs. “I guess I’m ready to go then.”

Lexa nods. “Your guard waits for you at the gate,” she says. “I will walk with you.”

Clarke has to fight the urge to hold her hand every step of the way.

* * *

As they near the city gate, Clarke sees the familiar face of Algor. He stands rigidly beside the wall, a sword strapped to his back and several visible daggers and pouches attached to his waist.

“Algor?” Clarke murmurs. “I figured you would send me with Javas.”

Lexa glances her way, a hint of a smile touching her lips. “I knew you would prefer him,” she says, “but he is needed here to replenish the food supply from the festival. Algor is a very capable warrior and holds no ill will toward your people. He will be a loyal companion for your journey.”

“And if I need to communicate with him?” Clarke asks, and she wonders if the Grounders have a system of sign language like the pre-war world once did. There had been a few people on the Ark who had learned the old language for those who needed it, but Clarke had never needed to, so she didn’t. She wishes now that she had.

“He can hear and understand you,” Lexa tells her, “so speak as you would with anyone.”

“Okay, but what if he needs to say something to me?”

“He is resourceful,” Lexa says. “He will find a way.”

When they reach him, Algor nods to Lexa and then knocks his knuckles against the metal of the gate. It opens a moment later, two guards pulling the separate doors apart, and Clarke isn’t surprised to see two horses already loaded and waiting for them beside the outer wall.

Lexa shares a few words with Algor in Trigedasleng. Clarke watches as he nods firmly before climbing atop his horse, and then Lexa turns to her. The Commander pulls her aside, just a few steps beyond the horses, and says, “It is a three-day ride to your people’s camp.”

“Okay,” Clarke murmurs, shifting on her feet. Her heart feels like it can’t quite find its rhythm all of a sudden, like finally standing in this moment of goodbye has muddled its melody and now every beat feels hesitant and out of place and _painful_. It’s hard to breathe with the way Lexa is looking at her, like she wants to say a lot things that Clarke knows she will not say, like she wants to pull her in and kiss her in a way that Clarke knows she never will when there are eyes on their backs and walls still half-erected around their hearts and unyielding expectations stamped into their flesh.

Clarke’s words feel too thick for her mouth when she says, “I’ll send word if I find anything out once I get there. It’s possible that there’s no reason to be worried at all.”

“It is,” Lexa says, and Clarke knows the words are a lie. They are empty, filling space and lightening the air around them so that they don’t have to think about all the things they’re not saying to each other and all the troubles they know they can never avoid.

And then Lexa surprises her.

“Will you return?” the Commander whispers, and Clarke feels the words wash over her like a crashing wave.

“Are you asking for _you_ ,” she murmurs, lips pulling in a teasing smile, “or are you asking because you think the good people of Polis will miss me?”

Lexa’s lips part but then she closes them again. Her cheeks dust with the slightest hint of pink before she parts her lips again to say, “Polis suits you, Clarke, and the people here _do_ celebrate you.”

Clarke rolls her eyes but lets out a small laugh. She tries not to think about the way it hurts as it escapes her throat, the way a laugh never should. “Well good, because I celebrate them too,” she says, not pushing Lexa any further, and turns to walk toward her waiting horse.

“Clarke, wait.”

When Clarke turns around, the tiny flicker of hope visible in Lexa’s eyes makes her feel flushed and overwhelmed.

The Commander licks her lips and hesitates only a moment before whispering, “I ask for me as well.”

Clarke’s stomach flutters and her chest tightens, and she wants to say yes, _yes of course_ , but if she has learned anything since being on the ground, it’s that there are no guarantees. So instead of making a promise that she doesn’t know if she can keep, Clarke simply says, “I hope so.”

And she really does.

* * *

The three-day ride to Camp Jaha is tedious and seems to drag on for centuries rather than days, and Clarke is ready to pull her hair out from all the silence.

Traveling with Algor definitely has its perks. He is steady and strong, alert and more than capable of successful hunts. He provides each of their meals and he doesn’t protest when Clarke asks if she can make their fires. She may not know much about living in the woods, but she _does_ know how to build a fire, and she wants to contribute _somehow_.

The downside of traveling with Algor is that there is so much silence that Clarke feels like it has taken on a physical form and she is drowning in it. It isn’t even the absence of sound that bothers her. Clarke can handle that. She can appreciate it even. It’s Algor’s complete lack of communication that drives her crazy. She knows and absolutely respects the fact that Algor cannot speak, but the man doesn’t seem to want to communicate with her at all, even if all that is required of him is to listen, maybe quirk an eyebrow or a smile, or even scratch his head in confusion. Clarke would take just about anything other than stone stillness with the occasional nod, but Algor gives basically nothing—no interest and little or no reaction. Clarke thinks he pretends not to hear her half the time.

Not even a handful of corny jokes, courtesy of Wells, manages to pull a smile across his lips, and Clarke finally gives up after not even receiving a _glance_ her way when she tries her favorite one.

“Why did the skeleton go to the party alone?”

“He had no _body_ to go with him!”

Algor’s blank stare ahead feels like a bucket of fresh embarrassment being dumped over her head, and Clarke wants to whip her horse around and race back to Polis, because she doesn’t think she can do this.

The silence lets everything seep back in again. When she isn’t talking or focused on a task, all she can do is think—think about where she is going, what she might find when she gets there, how her people might react to her return. She wonders how they will look at her, like she is precious or foreign or dangerous or heroic or evil, and she wonders if she will be able to stomach meeting their gazes to find out which. She thinks about Mount Weather, about the bodies she left there and about her people slipping back inside once she walked away. She thinks about Raven and Bellamy and Octavia, wonders if they will embrace her or lecture her or pretend like she didn’t slaughter hundreds of people so that they all could live. She thinks about Jasper, about his angry eyes and angry words, damning her, damning her, damning her.

Clarke thinks about Lexa. She thinks about Lexa when she looks at the trees and when she lays on the hard ground to sleep without her pressed against her back and when she successfully draws smoke from little piles of brush to make fires for Algor to stare into in silence.

He doesn’t communicate, and Clarke doesn’t know what to do, so she just thinks and thinks and tries not to give in to the urge to run.

After two full days of travel, Clarke lies beside her fire and stares up at the stars through the treetops. Her stomach is swollen from too much fox meat and her lips are chapped from the chilly wind and her head is full and full and _full._ She wraps one of Algor’s blankets more tightly around her in the night chill and tries not to imagine her breathy clouds of fog as smoke rising off of burning bodies. When she feels her eyes prickle with tears that slide down into her hair a moment later, she knows she has failed.

She nearly shouts, startled, when she suddenly feels hands slip under her shoulders but when she tilts her head back, she sees Algor’s upside down face looking back at her. She hadn’t heard him move from the other side of the fire, but then that isn’t terribly surprising.

“What are you doing?” she croaks, and Algor only nods his head and nudges her shoulders with his hands again, urging her to sit up. When she does, he pulls a small log up behind her and seats himself atop it. Clarke is about to ask again for an explanation, but then Algor turns her head and begins threading his fingers through her hair.

Clarke sits frozen and confused for a moment before she remembers what Lexa told her about Algor at the festival, and she realizes that he is going to braid her hair. “Oh,” she says, because she isn’t sure what else _to_ say or if she should say anything at all. She shrugs her shoulders and winces when his fingers snag on a few tangles, but her heart is suddenly swollen with warmth, so she just breathes out a sigh and whispers, “Okay then.”

When her hair is tangle-free, Clarke feels Algor begin to weave the strands into braids, and she closes her eyes at the gentle, rhythmic tugging. “Are you braiding my hair because you feel bad about ignoring me and not laughing at my jokes?” she asks, trying despite their track record for another chance at connection.

When she feels a sharp tug a moment later on the end of one of her new braids, Clarke can’t help but to laugh, and the fog that escapes with the sound is only fog. 

* * *

Clarke gasps violently awake but the sound is muffled by the hand clamping over her mouth. She fights the urge to scream as she blinks to try to clear her vision from sleep, and her heart races so rapidly inside her chest that it feels like it is trying to escape. Another arm wraps around her torso and jerks her up against a broad chest that she can feel pressing into her back. Clarke struggles against it until the person holding her turns her just enough so that she can see his face.

Algor looks down at her seriously and lets go of her long enough to press his index finger to his lips. Clarke nods her understanding and he slowly pulls his hand away from her mouth. He taps his finger to his ear, and Clarke strains to listen.

She doesn’t hear anything. She looks at him, confused and still pulsing with fear and adrenaline, and he only taps his ear again. Clarke listens again, and that’s when she hears them—voices. They are faint, distant and barely audible, and Clarke can’t make out what they are saying but she definitely hears them now.

They sound like they are coming from behind them, somewhere fairly far from the other side of the tree they are pressed against, and Clarke’s blood feels like ice in her veins. She looks to Algor who stands still and silent. He cranes his neck as if trying to hear better and then he locks eyes with Clarke.

He shifts just slightly to the left and then points to the spot where he was standing and then up at Clarke. She understands and moves into his former position. She watches as he quietly draws his sword from his back and then motions for her to stay.

Clarke holds her breath when Algor moves away from her and slinks out from around the tree. She has to clamp her hand over her mouth when a moment later, the air splits with a faint whistle and then a sickening thud and grunt. She hears Algor smack into the other side of the tree and then slide down to its base, and Clarke’s eyes widen and sting with tears.

She hesitates despite knowing she has to move, has to help him. What if she rounds the tree only to meet the same fate—an immediate attack from some unknown force whispering in the distant trees? Her heart pounds painfully against her ribs and her stomach lurches with every slamming beat, and she is fucking _terrified_ , but she can’t just stand here and let Algor die less than ten feet from her. She is going to help him, even if it means risking her own life.

Clarke drops into a low crouch and inches closer to the rounded edge of the tree. She takes several sharp, deep breaths, swallows down the bile that shoots up her throat and burns at the back of her mouth, and then forces herself around the tree. As soon as she shuffles around the trunk, she can’t help but to clench her eyes closed on instinct, fully expecting to feel the force of a blade or an arrow piercing her body, but nothing comes.

She opens her eyes and sees nothing ahead of her in the woods, and the only sound filling her ears is that of Algor’s harsh panting. She finds him slumped against the base of the tree with his hand pressed around his upper chest and shoulder where the long shaft of an arrow juts out of his flesh, a blue feather at its end.

He shakes his head rapidly when he sees her and tries to shoo her away, but Clarke stays where she is. She isn’t going to leave him, and if that means they might die here together, then so be it.

Clarke presses her hand over Algor’s and tries to force her mind away from any possible impending attack, because she has to be here for him. She has to be focused. She has to be unafraid.

“Okay,” she whispers shakily. “Okay, just stay with me. We can handle this.”

She goes to wrap her fingers around the arrow and that is when Clarke realizes that there is a small scrap of cloth tied around its shaft. She pulls it free, trying not to jostle the arrow around, and carefully unravels it.

Unrolled, the blue cloth appears to be a small flag of some kind. There is a symbol that Clarke doesn’t recognize, like an eye with a sword or a pick of some kind piercing it, and below the symbol are three messily scribbled words.

_She is watching._


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone, for all the incredible support and the wonderful comments. I appreciate you all so much more than I can express. This chapter was a such a thrilling, wonderful experience to write and ended up much longer than I originally expected. Delving into Clarke's developing relationships with the Grounders is such an intriguing and beautiful journey to explore and a lovely part of her healing process. I hope you will all enjoy this chapter! Things are really amping up. XO-Chrmdpoet

“Bite down on the stick and breathe through your nose,” Clarke says, one hand braced against Algor’s shoulder and the other wrapped around the shaft of the arrow protruding from his upper chest.

Algor’s eyes are wide but steely, resolved to the pain they both know is inevitable if Clarke is to free the arrow from his flesh. His teeth are bared around a thick piece of wood that Clarke broke off of a larger stick and practically shoved into his mouth, her hands just slightly trembling. He has one hand pressed against Clarke’s knee as she crouches in front of him and the other gripped around the handle of his sword. She watches as his determined eyes glance to her once before flitting back to the woods around them, ever watchful even when in pain, and he gives her a hard nod.

“Are you ready?” Clarke asks, voice breathy and hardly more than a whisper, and Algor gives her another swift nod. “Okay, deep breath, deep breath.”

Algor sucks in a sharp breath through his nose and as soon as Clarke hears him begin to exhale, she pulls him toward her just a bit and thrusts the shaft of the arrow forward, further into his shoulder. He hardly makes a sound beyond a hard grunt and several harsh, ragged breaths, and Clarke doesn’t understand how he manages to be so quiet because she isn’t even the one with the arrow stuck inside her and she wants to scream until her lungs give out. She glares at the back of his shoulder, willing the arrow’s head to push through faster. She gives it a harder shove, and a second later, the backside of Algor’s shirt shreds at the tip of the arrow.

“Okay,” Clarke breathes. The bloodied head of the arrow glistens in the early morning sun peeking through the tree tops. “Okay, it’s through. It’s through.”

Algor spits out the stick and sags just a bit in Clarke’s hands and she rubs his arm, trying to soothe him as much as she can. She turns and glances behind her, eyes scanning through the trees. Her heart hasn’t stopped racing since she woke with Algor’s hand over her mouth, and she doesn’t think it will slow any time soon. She knows they are being watched, but she doesn’t understand why no one has made any further move to attack. Her back has been a wide open target for several minutes now, yet nothing. The lack of movement only makes her more nervous, though she does her best to keep her hands steady and her train of thought focused and on track.

Tending to Algor’s wound is her main concern. Besides, what could she possibly do? Draw her gun and shout out threats to the trees? Even with a weapon in hand, an arrow could pierce her heart faster than she could even think to raise her gun. Whoever fired at Algor has every advantage here, and Clarke knows there is no true way to protect herself outside of hiding, and even then, who knows? They could be surrounded by now.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” she whispers, and Algor’s gaze flits back to her.

He shakes his head, and Clarke isn’t sure if that means he doesn’t know or he doesn’t want to tell her or she shouldn’t concern herself with it or any number of other things a shake of the head could mean.

“You don’t know?” she asks, and Algor keeps his eyes trained on the woods around him but the hand he has pressed against Clarke’s knee shifts just enough for him to tap the scrap of blue material draped over her thigh—the flag.

“This?” She holds up the blue flag and he nods. “They attacked just for this?” He nods again, and Clarke’s brain is teeming with questions. Her heart is thumping in time with the rushing waves of her adrenaline. “So, it was a message? They _shot_ you just to send a message?”

Algor holds her gaze for a long moment before nodding again, and though Clarke assumes that this is a confirmation that no further attack will occur, she notices that Algor doesn’t loosen his grip on his sword. Clarke swallows thickly. She wants to ask more but Algor has caught his breath enough for her to finish what she is doing, so she forces her focus back on her task and steadies her hand around the shaft of the arrow again. She picks up the discarded stick with her other hand and presses it into Algor’s mouth again before carefully grabbing the head of the arrow. “Ready?”

Algor bites down on the stick and nods, and Clarke takes a deep breath before squeezing her fist around the triangular head. Its sharp edges bite into the flesh of her hand but she ignores the small bit of pain in favor of focus and snaps the head down roughly so that it breaks free from the shaft. Algor grunts again as the motion jostles the arrow inside his wound, and Clarke just wants this to be over with.

“I just have to pull the shaft out,” she tells him, discarding the broken piece on the ground.

She sees his bottom lip tremble, his face ashen but hard. His eyes are glossy but his cheeks are dry, and when he clenches his jaw and gives her nothing more than another firm nod, Clarke wants to tell him that he is one of the strongest people she has ever met. She braces her hand on his shoulder, gripping as tightly as possible to make sure he won’t move when she pulls the arrow free. Latching onto the arrow, Clarke licks her lips and whispers, “Just a little more pain and then it’s over.”

She feels Algor’s fingers squeeze softly around her knee, and her eyes begin to burn with tears. “Okay,” she breathes. “Okay.” She doesn’t know who she is trying to soothe anymore, herself or Algor, but the word falls from her lips over and over until it doesn’t sound like a word anymore.

She isn’t moving. Her hand is frozen around the arrow, gripping like it knows what has to be done, but Clarke can’t actually make it move. Her mind races. It’s close but Clarke is fairly sure that Algor wasn’t pierced in a fatal location. She knows, though, that as soon as she pulls the arrow free, the wound will begin to bleed, fast and heavy. She can tie it up, keep it covered, but the position of the wound won’t allow for a secure hold. It won’t get the pressure it needs.

“How close are we to camp?” she whispers, and Algor weakly moves the hand he has wrapped around Clarke’s knee. He holds up his index finger and thumb, pinching them toward each other with only a bit of space between.

“Close?” Clarke asks and he nods. “How close? A few hours? A full day?”

Algor doesn’t have an answer for her beyond the same indication with his fingers, and Clarke feels dizzy. Her throat feels thick and scratchy and every breath feels too shallow, like the air can’t get down into her lungs where she needs it most. If she pulls out the arrow but can’t get Algor to Camp Jaha soon enough, he could die from blood loss, but Clarke fears infection if she leaves the arrow in.

Her hand trembles around the arrow’s shaft and her vision blurs. The forest turns splotchy around her. Everything feels too heavy and too fast and too _everything_ , and Clarke doesn’t know if she can make this choice. She closes her eyes, clamping them tightly, and feels a few hot tears leak down her cheek.

She startles when she feels a hand settle on top of hers, and Clarke’s eyes snap open again to see Bellamy crouching next to her. He looks at her, his face solemn, and when Clarke turns back to their joined hands, their fingers are wrapped around the handle of a lever and suddenly the woods are white, walled, and clinical.

“No,” Clarke croaks. She shakes her head and clamps her eyes closed again. When she opens them once more, the pressure has lifted from her hand and Bellamy is gone. She takes several sharp, deep breaths and glances to Algor, whose eyes are now trained on her. Clarke looks away, unable to stand the weight of his gaze, and braces herself again.

“I’m saving a life,” she says, her hand tightening around the arrow. “I’m _saving_ a life. No one is dying.”

As soon as the last word leaves her lips, Clarke jerks back hard on the arrow. Algor, taken by surprise, lets out a hard, dragging groan and audibly grinds his teeth into the stick between his lips as the shaft pulls free from his chest with a sickening squelch. Clarke breathes nearly as quickly and shallowly as he does, the forest blinking back and forth around her—green, white, green, white, green. She blinks rapidly until she is solid in the moment and tosses the arrow to the ground before pressing both hands to the now open wound from both sides.

Clarke glances down at her clothes and then at Algor’s. She needs something to cover and tie the wound with. She could rip off strips of their clothes but she knows it will take a lot. Then she remembers the blanket, Algor’s blanket.

“Press your hand to the wound,” Clarke says, but Algor’s grip tightens around the handle of his sword, and breathing raggedly, he shakes his head.

“I just have to get the blanket. It’s on the other side of the tree, and it will only take a second. Press your hand to your wound.”

Algor shakes his head again and Clarke grits her teeth. “No one has attacked us since they shot you,” she snaps. “They could have killed us both already and you know it, so let go of your stupid sword for five seconds and press your hand to your wound!”

Algor’s jaw clenches and Clarke feels the motion like a fist around her heart. She sucks in a shaky breath and whispers, “Please.”

His eyes lock onto hers for a long moment before he gives a subtle nod and finally lets go of his sword. The arm on his wounded side falls limply to the ground as Clarke shifts away from him, and the hand he kept wrapped around his weapon lifts to press against the front of his wound. Clarke thinks that has to be better than nothing, even if the back is still exposed.

Jumping up, Clarke darts around the tree and races to grab the blanket that rests in a crumpled heap on the ground. The water canteen next to it catches her eye as well, so she picks up both items and runs back around the tree. The blanket is thin enough for her to tear, so she pulls one of Lexa’s daggers from her thigh and cuts open the edge before using her hands to rip clean a long strip of material. She repeats the action over and over until she has several long strips.

Algor watches the movements as he presses his wound, and Clarke can feel his eyes on her like a penetrating plea— _save me, save me, save me._ She thinks, though, that maybe the real plea digging into her flesh and down to her soul isn’t actually Algor’s at all but her own— _save him, save him, save him._

“We have to get to camp as fast as possible,” she says as she moves the dagger to Algor’s shoulder and cuts through the material of his shirt until most of his shoulder and chest are exposed. “My mom is a doctor. She can help you.”

Clarke uses the water from the canteen and one of the blanket strips to clean the wound as much as she can, and Algor bites down on the stick as she rubs over the raw flesh. Once that is finished, Clarke quickly begins covering the hole, wrapping several long strips of blanket around and around Algor’s chest and shoulder, weaving under his arm and over his shoulder and around the full width of his chest and tying each piece as tightly as she can. Blood has already soaked through the first few strips and makes a visible red dot in the material by the time the last strip is on, and Clarke tries not to let the sight make her sick to her stomach.

She pulls the stick from Algor’s mouth. “That’s the best I can do,” she says, and she hates the way her voice trembles like it is trying to tell them both that her best isn’t good enough. “We have to move.”

Algor nods and grunts as he grabs his sword and lets Clarke help him to his feet. Clarke’s gaze catches on a flash of blue before she can move from the tree, and she ducks down to pick up the small flag that must have fallen from her thigh when she went to get the blanket. She knows she will need it as evidence, so she tucks it into one of the pouches on Algor’s waist as he sheathes his sword.

He clicks his tongue like Clarke has heard him do several times, and as usual, the slow thudding steps of their horses stir in the wood, the animals responding to the call.

“You’ll have to ride with me,” Clarke says and the words are more of a command than a statement. She grabs Algor’s horse’s reins to pull the animal closer to her own horse. “You’re losing blood, and you’re going to start getting really tired really soon. I can’t risk you passing out and falling off your horse.”

Algor doesn’t protest but simply nods and Clarke returns the gesture before pulling herself up onto her horse. Her movements are jerky and rigid as always, untrained on such an animal and lacking all the grace and speed with which the Grounders mount their steeds. In time, she thinks … maybe. Once she is up, she reaches down for Algor. “You’re going to have to pull yourself up. I’m sorry.” She is. She knows how much energy this will cost him and how much pain it will cause. “You know you’re too heavy for me to lift you.”

He only nods again and grasps her hand with his good arm. It is a struggle but he manages to jump and crawl his way up onto the horse, settling in behind Clarke and sagging a bit against her back. Clarke’s stomach lurches at the way he slumps against her, one arm wrapping around her waist, but she forces herself to stay focused, stay calm, stay strong. She has to stay strong.

“Stay awake,” she says, and she feels Algor tap his finger against her side in understanding.

She reaches down for the reins of Algor’s horse and grasps the reins of her own as well. Knowing she is going to have to ride hard, Clarke hopes the horses can hold out for as long as she needs them to. She clicks her heels against her horse’s sides and tugs on the reins of Algor’s horse at the same time. Both steeds stir into action, snorting out hard breaths as they move into a trot. Clarke lets them trot for a short length before urging them on faster, and when they break into a run, she feels a spark of hope ignite in her chest.

* * *

Clarke rides hard, the horses’ hooves thudding rapidly against the dirt like beating drums. Her thighs are screaming and her back aches, and she knows the horses are tired. They have been running for what has to have been a few hours at least, and Clarke has only allowed them to slow a few times to let them rest before urging them back on. The sun is getting higher in the sky, closer to the position that will signify noon, and Clarke thinks, _hopes_ , that they have to be nearing her people’s camp. They _have_ to be.

It is a three-day ride to Camp Jaha from Polis, a three-day ride at a slow but steady pace with rest stops and full nights of sleep included. Two days have already been covered and Clarke has been riding at anything but a slow pace. She has been _racing_ , so they have to be close.

“Squeeze my leg,” she says for what must be around the hundredth time. She has been repeating the command intermittently to make sure that Algor is still awake and with her, the words growing louder and more desperate as his weight against her back grew heavier and more pressing. Her desperation doubled when she felt moisture begin to seep through her clothes and melt into her skin where Algor’s chest lay against her back, his wound having bled through his bandages. Too much time has passed since that first press of wetness.

Her eyes are hard on the woods ahead of her. Everything feels and smells and looks familiar, but Clarke has been convincing herself of that same sensation for what must have been miles now, so she no longer trusts herself. But then she sees it, the way the trees thin and part in the near distance, a clearing forced into their previously tranquil and steady presence, and she gasps.

“There it is!” Clarke practically shouts the words as the Ark quickly starts to come into view, its hulking metallic remains standing in stark contrast to the surrounding forest. “We’re close, Algor. Just a little farther.”

When she receives no response, Clarke realizes that she never felt him squeeze her leg, and her blood freezes in her veins. She swallows, thick and scratchy. “Algor?”

Clarke’s heart clenches roughly in her chest and she clasps both sets of reins in one hand so that she can free her other just long enough to jostle the heavy arm draped loosely around her waist. “Hey,” she says, raising her voice and shaking his wrist. “Hey. I told you no sleeping. Wake up.”

Again, she receives no response, and Algor is motionless and so, _so_ heavy against her back. Clarke tries to turn enough to glance back at him but all she can see is the top of his head, his dark hair pushed up against her shoulder. Clarke’s stomach bottoms out as she pinches at the skin of his hand, and her voice cracks when she shouts, “Hey!”

Algor’s hand is as limp as his arm and body, and he gives nothing in response to Clarke’s touch or panic.

No. Clarke grits her teeth and shakes her head. _No_. This isn’t happening. Tears spill free from her eyes as she kicks her heels against her horse’s sides and urges the beast to move faster. They are so close, _so_ close. Algor has to make it.

She races to the gate, her stomach flipping as a few visible heads turn at the thunderous beat of the horses’ approach, and Clarke screams out before she ever even reaches the metal fence.

“Open the gate!” She hopes whoever is on guard recognizes her voice or the golden glint of her hair in the sun. She realizes quickly, though, that the guard doesn’t have to recognize her because the camp is teeming with people, everyone outside and crowded around makeshift tables and stumps to eat lunch. Clarke can already see several people abandoning their positions and sprinting to the fence at the desperate sound of her voice, and her heart thumps harder.

“Open the gate!” She shouts the words again because even with a crowd gathering, the gate has yet to open, and she doesn’t understand why.

“Clarke!” She hears her name fired like a gunshot in the woods, echoing, echoing. “It’s Clarke!” Another voice. “Clarke is back!” And another. “Someone get the Chancellor!” Another. There are too many voices, too many faces, and everything is a blur. Clarke can’t take them all in, can’t pick out any people she knows or needs or _loves_ , and then … “She’s with a Grounder!”

Clarke’s stomach sinks at those words, because they are all it takes for her to realize why the gate still hasn’t opened. She yanks back hard on the horse’s reins to pull them to a sudden stop as she reaches the gate. Her immediate instinct is to jump down but her body is the only thing holding Algor up at this point, so she stays in place and stares down the guard standing at the gate with his gun at the ready. He looks familiar but Clarke doesn’t fully recognize him, just another face she never got to know.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” she snaps at him, and she can feel herself hardening and hardening like before—before all this, before she left—when she was fighting for her life and the lives of her people, when she was slicing her arm open just to benefit her mission, when she was leaping into rushing rivers, when she was forging alliances, when she was not the Chancellor but she was definitely in charge. She is becoming steel and iron and titanium like she keeps the metal just beneath her flesh, ready, ready, and she thought she could never be this person again, but she is amazed at how easily she becomes impenetrable. It terrifies her. “Open the gate!”

“What are you doing with one of _them_?” Clarke hates the way the word drips from the man’s mouth with such disgust— _them_. She understands his hesitation about the Grounders and even his distrust, but for some reason Clarke feels like the word is a direct insult to her as well, as if she is no longer an _us_ but a _them_. She hardens further.

“You can question me later,” Clarke spits. “Just open the gate. He needs help.”

Clarke hears someone from the crowd shout for the guard to open the gate, and then another, but those voices quickly become mixed with those of others who shout for the gate to remain closed unless Clarke leaves the Grounder behind.

“Yeah, well, we needed _their_ help at the mountain and look how much they helped us,” the guard growls. “Why should we help _him_?”

“Because I said so!” Clarke shouts at him, and her stomach is bubbling with burning bile that threatens to spill up her throat any second, because these are her people. These are her people and they refuse to let her in. “Now open the fucking gate!”

“Do as she says!” Abby’s voice rings out through the crowd. People part like water breaking around stone, and then Clarke sees her. Her mother is stiff but rushing, her eyes glossy in the sunlight but hard, and Clarke has a sudden urge to sink into her arms.

“Open the gate right now!” Bellamy. He rushes out of the Ark behind Abby, his sister and Lincoln behind him. He sprints past Clarke’s mother and practically barrels into the guard at the gate, pushing him hard. “What the hell is wrong with you? She’s one of us.”

“And she’s got one of _them_ with her!” The guard tries to defend himself but his words fall on deaf ears, and the gate is being pulled open and pushing him out of the way.

“Clarke,” Abby says as she rushes forward, and her name is like a plea and a thank-you and a prayer, and Clarke has to harden herself further just to keep from crying.

“He was shot with an arrow,” Clarke says, not bothering with greetings. “We’ve been riding for hours and he’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know how long he’s been unconscious but you have to help him.” She finally pushes herself shakily off the horse, her mother’s hand wrapping around her arm and leg to help her as moves until she is safely on the ground. Her grip feels desperate, and Clarke remembers the way she left—no warning, no word. She just slipped away like a ghost, and her mother’s nails digging into her skin now remind her how much she left behind and how soft she actually is. It’s just another layer to add to Clarke’s pile of burdens and sorrows and regrets.

“Clarke, your shoulder.” Abby’s eyes widen and she presses a hand to Clarke’s back. “You’re bleeding.”

Clarke feels the moisture against her skin and shakes her head. “It’s not mine,” she says, and she sees her mother visibly relax. “You have to help him, Mom. You have to.”

“Okay, honey,” Abby says, her voice soft and soothing as she squeezes Clarke’s arm, and Clarke can tell that she is trying to calm her down. She pulls Clarke toward her in a partial embrace, eyes brimming with tears, but Clarke is already moving away from her. She can’t let herself sink in, not here, not now, not yet.

Bellamy catches Algor as he slumps in Clarke’s absence and Clarke jumps to help him. They carefully pull him from the horse as Abby begins shouting out orders for others to help transport Algor into the Ark and to the medical bay. She presses her fingers to his throat and nods.

“Pulse is weak but there,” she says and then motions the people forward.

Clarke runs alongside her mother as Abby sets off at a fast pace toward the Ark, those carrying Algor following right behind her. “He can’t die, Mom,” she says, and her words are desperate but her voice is hard. “I have to …” She stops and swallows, hurts and hurts and hurts. “ _You_ have to save him.”

Abby looks her way as they approach the entrance to the Ark, reaches out briefly to palm Clarke’s cheek. “I’ll do my best, Clarke.”

* * *

Clarke stays in the room with her mother, just outside the sterile field, until Algor is anesthetized. Once he is under, she takes a deep breath, swipes a dirty, blood-stained hand down her face, and turns to leave. As soon as she exits into the main hall outside the medical bay, though, her stomach sinks and her calming heart begins to race again.

A small crowd of people waits for her, leaning against the cold, metal walls of the Ark with their heads bowed and their arms crossed over their chests. Some of them whisper to each other. Some of them just stare at the floor. Bits and pieces of the hundred, the bits and pieces Clarke has fought with and for, loved like they were her family. They _are_ her family.

Heads turn in her direction when she takes a few steps closer to them, and then they are all pushing off the walls and moving toward her. It’s awkward, the silence, but then it bursts wide open and there are so many voices speaking at once. There are so many questions, _too_ many questions and too many hands touching and pulling at her, and she is trying to hug them all and hold them all and love them all, but she just doesn’t have it in her. Her eyes fix on two people who stand near the back of the crowd, both their arms crossed over their chests, and their postures rigid, their eyes somehow soft and hard at the same time.

Clarke pushes through the crowd as gently as she can until she stands in front of them. She takes in Octavia’s long, dark hair, still twisted into braids that seem to suit her better than gentle waves, and Clarke can see the love in her eyes even as Octavia keeps her distance and keeps her jaw hard and clenched. Lincoln stands strong beside her but Clarke can see how much softer he is. His emotions aren’t at war like Clarke imagines Octavia’s to be in this moment, and so she directs her question to him.

“Can I talk to you?” she asks, and then she glances to Octavia. “Both of you? In private?”

They both nod their acceptance after a moment and turn to lead Clarke away from the crowd. Bellamy tries to follow, tries to latch onto Clarke like he is afraid she will disappear if he detaches, but she just squeezes his arm and asks him to give her space. He doesn’t seem to care for the request but he nods his acceptance anyway, and Clarke follows Octavia and Lincoln away from all the hands and the eyes and the questions.

* * *

“Do you know the way to Polis?” Clarke asks as she sags onto the mattress of her old bed, Lincoln and Octavia settled into chairs across from her. Her body screams for her to stop talking, to lie down, to sleep until winter swallows up the forest and retreats again, sleep until there is sun and Spring and something in the air other than death.

Lincoln nods. “But I defied a direct order of retreat from the Commander,” he tells her. “My people will know me as a traitor. I cannot return there.”

Clarke hates the way Octavia sits and stares at her in silence, silence that is deafening and angry and _sad._ She can’t bring herself to meet her gaze. “What if I pardon you,” she asks, keeping her attention on Lincoln, “or I don’t know, grant you immunity or something?”

He frowns and shakes his head. “You have no rule over _my_ people, Clarke. Only the Commander can grant a pardon, and she is not known for such mercies.”

“No, I know,” Clarke tells him. “I meant a pardon from me and _my_ people. You’re one of us now too. If I claim you as a Sky Person, then I can give you protection or something, right? Would your people respect that?”

Lincoln stares at her for a long, silent moment before looking to Octavia and then back to Clarke. “No,” he says simply with a single shake of his head. “You cannot pardon me for crimes I committed against _them_ , much like you couldn’t pardon Finn.” Clarke feels the name like a whip against her flesh. “It is not your place.”

Clarke lets out a long sigh and swipes a hand through her hair. She glances to Octavia, who now stares at the ground. “What about you?”

When Octavia looks up at her, her gaze is just as full as it was before, and Clarke has to force down the lump in her throat. “Can _you_ go?” she asks, keeping her voice steady despite the way Octavia’s eyes make her want to shatter into pieces and crumble into dust.

“I don’t know the way,” Octavia says, cold and hard, “and we don’t have horses here anyway. I’m guessing it’s a long way to go on foot.”

“We have horses,” Clarke says. “You can use them. We can load you up with a few supplies and have you on your way within the hour.”

“Are you forgetting that I don’t know how to get there?” Octavia asks, arching a brow, and her arms are wrapped so tightly around her chest that it looks like she is trying to comfort herself. Clarke wonders if that hug had been meant for her but Octavia just couldn’t bring herself to give it up.

“I can draw a map,” Lincoln says, cutting in, “but I won’t send her alone. It is a long trip, and you were attacked on your way here.”

“I wasn’t planning on sending her alone,” Clarke says, licking over her dry lips. They feel as cracked as her spirit. “I was planning on sending you with her.”

“But—”

“You don’t have to go _into_ Polis, Lincoln,” Clarke tells him. “You don’t even have to go up to the gate. Octavia can do that. All _you_ have to do is get her there.”

* * *

Octavia stands tall as she walks beside Clarke, and Clarke watches her out of the corner of her eye. Her jaw is set, her eyes are sharp and focused, and her hands are strong and ready, always ready. Clarke can see how much she has changed, _transformed_. She is harder but wilder, rigid but fluid and graceful, and Clarke is amazed by the way the silence of the Grounders has slipped into Octavia’s soul and the once loud and effusive girl now speaks so much more with her eyes and her body than she does with her words. She is fierce and brave and beautiful, and she is also sad. She is … something _more_.

Clarke can see it in her eyes and angles—that same indescribable something that she knows is visible in her own and in Bellamy’s and in Raven’s and in Lexa’s. Maybe it’s war, Clarke thinks, or maybe it’s just survival. Maybe it’s the way you change after you take someone’s blood onto your hands, the way killing shatters certain parts of you and then pieces those parts back together into shapes that never quite fit inside you the same way. Maybe it’s loss and the intimate, aching knowledge of what it feels and means to have precious things and even more precious people ripped away from you in the blink of an eye. Maybe it’s learning how to be an adult before you ever even finish being a kid, or before you ever even start. Maybe it’s all of those things and so much more.

“What am I supposed to do when I get to the gate?” Octavia asks, pulling Clarke back to the moment as they make their way through camp and toward the waiting horses just outside the fence. Lincoln stands beside the beasts like a statue in the afternoon sun. It had taken nearly an hour just to convince Bellamy to let Octavia go, but he finally relented after a lot of reassurance from Lincoln and a punch to the gut followed by a hug from Octavia. “Don’t they all know by now what happened at the mountain? What makes you think they won’t assume I’m there in retaliation or something?”

“Because no one retaliates by sending a single warrior in to take down an entire city,” Clarke tells her. Octavia huffs and rolls her eyes, and it reminds Clarke so much of the girl who threw her arms in the air and screamed with joy at having her feet on the ground that her eyes water and her throat grows tight.

“You said the entire city is surrounded by giant walls,” Octavia says. “You honestly think they’re just going to let me walk right in?”

Clarke clears her throat, shakes away the memories. She keeps her voice low and her steps light as they draw too near a few of the people milling about the camp. “Tell the guards at the gate that you come on behalf of _Klark kom skaikru_ and you seek immediate audience with the Commander.”

She offers a tight smile to the few people who stare at them curiously as they pass. The last thing she needs is for people to start asking more questions and sparking another camp-wide panic. She lets out a silent though shaky breath. “Tell them it is urgent.”

“And if she doesn’t agree to see me?”

“She will.”

“How can you know for sure?”

“Because that’s where I’ve been since I left,” Clarke admits, keeping her eyes fixed ahead of them and away from Octavia’s gaze. She can feel it burning into the side of her face now. “I’ve been in Polis with Lexa.”

“Clarke,” Octavia says, and Clarke can hear the way her teeth are clenched, the way her name pushes through them like it has to be forced. “She _abandoned_ us. She left us to _die_ , _all_ of us, including you, and you …” She stops, sucks in a hard breath, and Clarke turns to look at her then. She can see the two different sides of Octavia—the young, emotional, stubborn girl and the hardened, level-headed but even more stubborn warrior—warring with each other in the way her hands clench in and out of fists and her eyes blink too hard for comfort and her jaw sets like it is turning to stone.

Clarke clenches her own jaw and tries not to let herself grow cold and defensive where Lexa is concerned. She knows Octavia’s caution and anger are not unfounded, and she understands why any of her people would feel the same way, but that doesn’t stop her body from wanting to scream out all the ways Lexa has been beaten and broken and _still_ took the time to tend to her people, to love them fiercely … to piece Clarke back together with such tenderness and care even as her own pieces remained in a pile at her feet. Clarke takes a deep breath. “You don’t have to understand, Octavia, and I don’t have time to explain.” Another deep breath. “All you need to know is that Lexa won’t hesitate to take audience.”

There is a long, tense moment of silence between them as they reach the open gate and step through to meet Lincoln on the other side. Octavia doesn’t speak until she is about to mount Clarke’s horse.

“And when I see the almighty Commander?” she drawls bitterly, and Clarke bites the inside of her cheek. “Then what? What am I supposed to say?”

Clarke licks her lips and swallows thickly. She tightens her hands into fists and shifts from foot to foot before stepping closer to Octavia. Her voice drops to a whisper when she says, “You tell her she was right. Tell her they are close. Tell her blood has already been spilled.”

Octavia’s brows furrow and suddenly all of her anger is gone, washed away by the worry that seeps into her frown and her voice. “ _Who_ is close, Clarke?” she hisses back. “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t say.”

Octavia glances back to Lincoln before shifting closer to Clarke and asking, “Are we in danger?”

Clarke lets out a soft sigh. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Octavia asks. “That’s not an answer, Clarke.”

“It’s the only answer I have,” Clarke tells her, and Octavia stiffens.

“Well, that’s not good enough,” she hisses, and Clarke feels something fracture inside her. She hears those words echo in her mind from the first time Octavia spat them at her, and her insides grow hot and furious, because she is doing the fucking _best_ she can, and she feels more alone than she can even begin to express, and no one seems to _get_ that. No one ever seems to get it; _no one_ … except Lexa. “How am I supposed to give someone a message about something I don’t know anything about? You’re sending me off to run your errands for you but holding back information, and I think—”

“Just do as I say!” Clarke snaps, cutting her off, and Octavia’s eyes turn wide and wild and angry in a flash. Clarke takes in a fast, sharp breath and shakes her head. She shakes it so hard that it makes her neck hurt. “I’m sorry,” she croaks. “No, I’m sorry. You’re right, but please … Octavia, _please_. Please just try to trust me long enough to do this for me. Just tell her what I told you, and I promise you’ll know everything soon enough.”

Octavia is stiff as a board and practically steaming but she doesn’t fight. She holds her stance for a long, silent moment before finally giving Clarke a subtle nod. Her voice is like gravel, gritty and sharp, when she asks, “ _Anything else?_ ”

“Yeah,” Clarke says and pulls up her shirt to grab the small blue scrap of material she had tucked into the waistband of her pants, having retrieved it from Algor’s gear after they stripped him for surgery. She folds the flag in half and hands it to Octavia. “Once you give her my message, give her this. She will know what to do.”

At least, Clarke hopes she will.

Octavia nods, taking the flag, and moves to mount the horse. Before she can swing herself up and over, though, Clarke reaches out and grabs her arm. “Octavia,” she says, and it comes out softer and more broken than she intended, but it’s too late to suck the sorrow back inside.

Octavia stills at her touch but doesn’t turn to face Clarke. Instead, she just reaches over and squeezes the blood-crusted hand wrapped around her arm before pulling free and climbing up onto the horse. Clarke still feels the pressure on her hand long after Octavia and Lincoln disappear between the towering trees.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slightly longer wait on this chapter. Life and work got in the way. This chapter originally covered the passing of multiple days but with the first evening being so focus-heavy, it got very long. So, I cut it into two chapters, and it feels so much cleaner and better this way. I am really enjoying Clarke's return to Camp Jaha. Everyone is sort of walking on eggshells with her right now but the next chapter will dig quite a bit deeper. 
> 
> Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful support for this story. It means so much more to me than I can say, and I love reading your thoughts and experiences with the story.
> 
> This chapter and the next one span Clarke's first few days at camp, and they have the same soundtrack. "Atlas" by Coldplay. Give it a try if you like. I hope you all enjoy this chapter! XO-Chrmdpoet

Clarke lingers by the gate long after Octavia and Lincoln are gone. She crosses her arms tightly over her chest, stares into the trees like she is searching for something. There is nothing to find, though Clarke wonders when the green of the forest became more comforting than the silver and slate of the grounded station behind her.

“So, that was quite the dramatic return, Princess.”

She doesn’t turn to face Bellamy when he steps into the space beside her, but she can see his sober expression from the corner of her eye. His arms are crossed over his chest as well, upper arm brushing lightly against Clarke’s shoulder. He, too, has gaping holes in his heart, his chest riddled with the wounds of war even if no one can see how they bleed and bleed and never seem to stop bleeding. They hold themselves together, embrace their own bodies like that slight bit of pressure can hold in the last little bits of who they used to be, who they can never be again.

“I guess I had to make up for the underwhelming exit,” Clarke says, voice raspy from her earlier shouting and tears. She lets the smallest of smiles paint her lips as she tilts her head just slightly in his direction. The expression is mirrored on his face.

Bellamy bumps her side and Clarke leans more fully against his arm. They stand that way in silence, staring out into the trees as the sky grows orange and purple with the falling sun, until he quietly asks, “You didn’t come back because you were ready to, did you?”

There is no need to pull punches with Bellamy, so Clarke shakes her head and says, “I don’t know if I ever would have been ready.”

He nods slowly. “You want to tell me the reason you’re here then?” A gentle nudge presses against her shoulder. “Maybe explain why you showed up with a bleeding Grounder attached to your back?”

Clarke gives him another small smile but arches a brow. “You want to tell me why our people have been making regular visits to Mount Weather?”

“You know about that?”

Nodding, Clarke expects him to ask how. It’s a question she wants to avoid, because she isn’t ready to get into any kind of discussion with anyone about her time away—where she has been and who she has been with. Octavia’s reaction had been quite enough for a day.

Bellamy doesn’t ask, though. Instead, he just sighs again and says, “The bodies.”

The words pierce Clarke like a sword to the stomach, sharp and violent, and she has to force the air into and out of her lungs to keep from visibly jolting.

“We couldn’t just leave them there like that.”

Clarke nods, unable to say anything. Her throat feels like it is closing around a fist.

“And Jasper … he needed the closure.” Bellamy’s voice is thick, coated. “We burned most of them, buried a few.” The hard huff of air he releases sounds too heavy, too weathered for his age. “We had to go back, Clarke.”

“Yeah,” she croaks, because that’s all she _can_ say.

“Since then it’s just been about supplies,” he tells her. “They have so much, Clarke. Food, bedding, clothing, armor, weapons, ammo … medicine. I thought your mom was going to cry when we stocked up the medical bay for her.”

A tiny laugh slips through Clarke’s lips, the sound squeaky and wet as her eyes burn and water. “I can imagine.”

“Raven was pissed about the anesthesia.” Bellamy lets out a rough laugh that pulls another, louder one from Clarke’s lips as well. He puts on his best imitation of Raven, which looks and sounds nothing like her, throwing his arms up and rolling his eyes as he says, “Oh of course we find some anesthesia _after_ I already let Abby stick a scalpel in my back. _Of course_ that’s how it happens.”

Their ragged laughter somehow both hurts and soothes, and Clarke revels in the sensation. She lets it fill her up until her stomach aches from the force and her chest throbs with the lack of oxygen. When silence slowly begins to seep through the sound again, Clarke catches her breath and wipes at the tears staining her cheeks.

“She’s so strong,” she whispers, the words barely audible over the sounds of people pouring out of the Ark and gathering outside behind them, preparing for dinner.

Bellamy nods, rubs a hand down his face and through his hair. It’s longer, curling over his ears and against his neck and dangling toward his eyes. Clarke can see where it looks like someone tried to cut it in places, uneven and inconsistent, and it pulls a fresh smile to her lips.

“Should we be worried?” he asks.

Clarke turns toward him then, tries to ignore the way her stomach turns at the thought that her return is more of a warning than a reunion, a reason for her people to be on their guard. Their eyes lock and Clarke lets out a long sigh. “Just be alert.”

When he nods again, she reaches out to squeeze his arm before turning toward the Ark. “I should check on my mom, see how the surgery is going.”

She only manages a few steps before Bellamy calls out to her. The dirt crunches beneath her boots as she turns at the sound of her name.

“I’m glad we’re meeting again,” he says, and Clarke can see how much he means it. His eyes are like his sister’s—so expressive, even when he tries to hold everything beneath the surface.

There is a gentle ache to the way her heart blooms in her chest as she smiles. “So am I.”

* * *

The smooth metal walls of the Ark rise up and arch overhead, create twisting tunnels of cool gray. They stretch outward like giant mechanical arms punched into the ground and reaching for one another, desperate to grasp and connect. The embrace no longer comforts Clarke but merely crowds her, closes in around her like it might never let her go.

What once felt like home now feels oddly alive and alien, a giant robot pressed into the scorched dirt where trees once stood and still should root but can’t. Like a living body, this ancient machine still functions even after the violence of impact. It endures despite the immense force of its trauma, despite multiple amputations and pieces of its system falling into failure. People still spill along the channels like blood rushing through veins and arteries, back and forth, traveling to various destinations and work sites, laboring as they always have to keep the body alive.

They forget that this body has raped and plundered the earth, ripped life from its surface and polluted its air with ash. They forget that this body is a monster, a killer, a thief, and it does not belong here. Still, it adapts to survive.

They all do.

Clarke wonders why it is so easy for them to forget the damage they have done—destroyers of the earth like all those who came before them. They demand survival, fight for it with violence and blood, and no one ever stops to wonder if they deserve it. Maybe no one does, and maybe that is just the way it’s supposed to be. Or maybe, Clarke thinks, nothing is or ever can be that simple. Morality is muddy, and even the most beautiful people do ugly, _ugly_ things.

She dodges questions and concerned stares, offers up tight-lipped smiles as she ducks out of the way of reaching hands and keeps walking even when she hears her name being called. She weaves through the winding labyrinth of the Ark effortlessly, its familiar pattern hammered into the hard lines of her bones, stitched into the fabric of her mind. That familiarity no longer soothes her.

The Ark’s persistent hum, quieter though still present, doesn’t dust her ears like a constant, comforting lullaby. Instead, it assaults—an artificial insect in desperate need of squashing—and she finds herself yearning for something organic and green and truly alive. Minutes inside the Ark make her miss the gentle melodies of the wind through the trees, the rhythmic thudding of rain against glass windows or hooves against the dirt, the twitter of birds ringing out from above, and the steady whisper of streams. She misses the sounds of blacksmiths hammering metal and merchants shouting out deals, drums beating for dancing feet and children playing war with wooden swords.

Clarke thinks it is the strangest thing for home to no longer feel like home.

It is quiet in the medical bay but for a few beeping machines and the soft but audible breathing of a single sleeping patient. Abby is still in surgery, and Clarke knows it might still be a while before she finishes. Her mother is meticulous and always does her best to ensure minimal scarring whenever possible, so Clarke knows she will take her time with the repair and the sutures.

Slipping into the small separated area that is Abby’s designated office, Clarke drops into the chair behind her desk. The ripped cushion sends out a gush of air as she sits, similar to the sigh that escapes her lips. Her thighs are raw and achy from all the horse-riding and her back feels stiff from Algor’s weight pressing against her for hours, so it is nice to finally collapse.

Pictures line the edge of Abby’s desk and Clarke takes them all in one by one. There are a few less than Clarke remembers and some have cracked frames or no frames at all, the colored paper torn and crinkled. Clarke guesses the damage occurred when the Ark dropped, and something pulls inside her to think of her mother digging through the rubble of the medical bay in an effort to find her photos and put them on display again. They are a little damaged, much like the people who suffered the impact were, but the memories they preserve are pristine. They deserve to be seen.

Clarke’s own face smiles back at her, free of lines and scars, and rosy with youth and blissful ignorance. Her hair is a bright almost white-blonde and falls in messy tendrils around her cheeks. A gaping hole stands where a tooth should be, and the girl in the photo seems perfectly pleased with that fact. Clarke still remembers waking up to find little toys and gifts under her pillow every time she lost a tooth. Her dad would pretend to know nothing of it, but Clarke knew it was him. His smile was always too wide, too guilty.

She is older by a few years in the next photo and strapped to her dad’s back like a monkey. Jake wears a wide, unburdened smile, one hand raised and tangled in Clarke’s hair as she laughs against his neck. The other arm is wrapped firmly around Abby, her face riddled with humor and affection as she leans into his side and stares up at his wide grin. She doesn’t seem to be aware of the nearby camera freezing their happiness in frame.

The image hits Clarke like a wave, crashing over and soaking through her clothes, seeping in. It collects in the back of her throat until she feels like she might choke on it, pushes up toward her eyes like a rushing current pressing against a dam.

Clarke is only a toddler in the next picture, seated atop her mother’s lap. Abby’s face is young and smooth, stretched with a wide smile as she holds the oversized ear tips of her stethoscope up to Clarke’s ears. A small, pudgy hand presses the chest piece over Abby’s breast, blue eyes blown wide and showing all the wonder of hearing, again, a heartbeat that once drummed above her, a constant melody as she grew inside her mother’s womb.

The dam cracks and Clarke’s eyes begin to water. Everything feels so surreal that it is almost painful, like the unburdened happiness she once knew so well is nothing but a lingering remnant of a hazy dream. She sucks in a staggered, wet breath and lets it out in a hard sigh, wonders if the best parts will ever feel real again.

The last photo is one of her parents together, a close-up of a tender moment after the kiss that sealed their vows. Their foreheads are pressed together, their eyes closed. Lips hover close but don’t touch, their corners pulling up—a whisper of joy that seems to burst with sound. Abby’s fingers cup the line of Jake’s jaw and blur into the edge of the photo, a tender touch that resonates through the entire picture. There is a stillness that seems so much more than peaceful, like they are taking this one moment to simply breathe each other in, like there is safety and comfort and _home_ in this one simple press.

Staring at the photo, Clarke lets it take her back to all the times she had seen her parents swooning over each other like lovesick teens. Even after years together, they still seemed so enamored with each other. Despite all the times Clarke had rolled her eyes at them and playfully mock-gagged at their affection, she knows she would give anything to see them like that again—alive and in love and unburdened by all the things that eventually shattered the illusion of security and sent the sky tumbling to the ground.

Clarke closes her eyes and thinks of Lexa.

Her breath catches in her throat when an image spills into her mind, clear and stunning, and presses hotly behind her eyelids like the neon splotches left behind after staring too long into the sun. Lexa’s green eyes, light and brilliant, sear into her. They scorch and soothe, flutter closed over the high arches of smooth cheeks and the bridge of a delicate nose. Her full lips are slightly parted.

Lexa’s forehead presses against her own, and Clarke feels the ghosts of slender fingers glide along the slide of her neck and press into the hair at the base of her head. She loses herself in the memory of Lexa’s touch, in the comfort of their timid exploration and the safe calm of Lexa’s silent reverie.

She feels slanted and shaken on her own, jarred by Lexa’s absence like she is unsuccessfully trying to find her footing on unsteady ground, and Clarke wonders if her mother feels the same way. She wonders if Abby is jarred by Jake’s absence, if she feels scattered and skewed where she once felt steady and solid and _complete_.

Clarke thinks maybe they are the same.

Lexa sacrificed her like Abby sacrificed Jake, both for what they believed was the good of their people, and Clarke thinks maybe that’s the way it will always be with them. Maybe she and Lexa will always be pushing and pulling at each other, clinging to hopes that will never grow into realities, and breaking each other’s hearts as often as they heal them. She doesn’t know if there is a way to close the gaps between them, to seal the barriers and ensure they remain, to ensure that they never have to sacrifice each other again.

The desk feels cold against her cheek as Clarke lays her head atop the smooth metal surface. She keeps her eyes firmly closed to preserve the clear image of Lexa that still lingers in her mind, and lets out a long heavy sigh as her body relaxes, collapsing more fully. Clarke doesn’t realize she is drifting, doesn’t notice the fog of sleep slipping in around the gentle green of Lexa’s eyes.

* * *

The tables are lined with dishes, plates filled with food, and Clarke’s stomach growls like she hasn’t eaten in years rather than days. The organ gnaws painfully at itself, and Clarke wants to resist the urge to shovel the meal down her throat and ask for more but she also isn’t ready to cause another stir. She doesn’t trust the people of Mount Weather, but she needs to play her cards right if she wants to get out of this place.

She allows herself a small spoonful of soup, ignoring Jasper’s eager eyes watching her. He is excited to be here and Clarke can’t blame him for that, but she refuses to place trust in what feels too good to be true. As soon as the broth slips through her lips, though, Clarke can’t hold in the guttural moan that feels like it rushes up from the very tips of her toes, and she shovels another spoonful in before she can stop herself. Monty and Jasper grin like they have won something, and Clarke rolls her eyes but smiles back at them.

Jasper wheezes around a loud laugh when Monty steals some of Clarke’s cake, and Clarke tries to protest with a mouthful of water. It dribbles down her chin, and they laugh like they aren’t delinquent children sent to the earth to die, like they haven’t spent the past several days fighting for their lives and putting bullets in bodies.

Their laughter spills down the table until the others are infected with it, and the chorus of joy fills up the great room like a concert. Clarke closes her eyes and presses her hand to her stomach as she laughs, and then suddenly the room goes silent. The change is so swift and unsettling that the silence buzzes in her ears like a fly.

Stomach sinking, Clarke slowly opens her eyes, and there are only bodies. A moment ago, the faces were laughing, and now they are burning, pressing into the surfaces of table and floor. They twitch and cringe, release hissing breaths that sound hollow and final, and then there is nothing.

No sound. No movement.

Clarke is alone in a sea of people. Her hands are dirty and theirs are limp.

And then there are fingertips running down her arms, breath skirting across her cheek, lips pressing against the back of her neck. Lexa wraps around her, kisses at her jaw, whispers, “I made this choice with my head and not my heart.”

Clarke leans into her touch, lets tears slip down her cheeks. The smell of burning flesh permeates the air around them, and Lexa kisses her like she is saying goodbye.

* * *

Clarke wakes to the feeling of fingertips brushing, feather-light, over her cheek and scratching through the downy hairs at the back of her neck. She jolts at the touch, pushing almost violently off the smooth metal of the desk her cheek had been pressed against. Her hands shoot to her hips, one gripping at the handle of her gun and the other fumbling messily over the handle of a dagger, and everything seems fuzzy like she is seeing it all inside a dream.

Her nose is still itching with the smell of death.

“It’s okay.” Her mother’s voice filters through the haze, and Clarke sucks in a hard, fast breath as everything comes rushing back to her and she remembers where she is. “Clarke.” She takes another deep breath as Abby’s hand presses under her chin and tilts her head back so that their eyes meet. Her fingers itch as they hover over her weapons, and Clarke curls them into fists and pulls them back into her lap, tries to ignore the way her stomach lurches and rolls.

“You’re okay,” Abby whispers, and Clarke nods, lets out a shaky sigh and reaches up to wipe away her tears and the smudge of wetness on her cheek from where her breath had condensed atop the desk.

They stare at one another silently as Clarke lets the slight tremors in her body slowly ebb, but then she remembers …

“The surgery!” Clarke jolts again, rubbing at her eyes in an effort to make herself more awake and aware. They sting behind the pressure of her knuckles, raw from too much crying and not enough sleep. “How’d it go?”

“It went well,” Abby says, and Clarke lets out a heavy sigh of relief. “There were a few complications, a collapsed lung, but nothing too extreme. He lost a lot of blood and our supply is limited. I gave him what I could and repaired the damage from the arrow, but he is going to need to stay put for a while to rest and recover, allow his body to replenish his blood supply.”

Clarke nods. “Is he awake?” She barely manages to make it to her feet before her mother’s hands press to her shoulders and ease her back into the chair.

“He’s still sleeping.” Abby sighs, soft and quiet. “I gave him a sedative, so he should be out until morning.”

“Oh.”

The silence creeps in on them again until it feels like it is digging at Clarke’s flesh. “Thank you,” she says, clearing her throat and glancing up to lock eyes with her mother, “for helping him. Thank you.”

Abby says nothing but simply nods, her lips pulling with a sad smile. She crosses her arms over her chest and leans against the wall. Questions, countless and aching, are visible in her eyes, and Clarke knows her mother must be nearly biting through her tongue just to hold them all in. Where has she been? How has she survived since she left? Who is the man she brought back with her? Who attacked them? Why did she choose to return now? Why did she ever leave at all?

Why did she leave? Why did she leave? _Why_?

Clarke’s chest swells, gratitude pulsing through her veins for her mother’s current restraint, for these few extra moments of reprieve. She watches Abby’s gaze flit over her as if assessing her health by sight alone, looking for cuts or bruises, anything she can soothe. When Abby fixates on her hair, Clarke remembers her new braids and smiles. She glances around but finds no mirror, so she raises a hand to brush her fingers lightly over the four long braids spread throughout her otherwise loose and wavy locks. A braid is woven from each of her temples, laced just above her ears. Two more, thicker and woven more loosely, pull from the top and trail backward to tie together at the back of her head.

“Do you like it?” she asks almost hesitantly, glancing back up at her mother.

“It’s different,” Abby says, “but it does suit you.”

Clarke nods, tries to think of another way to fill the silence but fails. Her brain screams for her to retreat but there’s nowhere for her to go. She needs to be here, _has_ to be here.

“It’s late,” her mother whispers, surprising her. She holds out her hand, and Clarke only stares at it for a short moment before slipping her own into its grasp and letting Abby pull her to her feet. “Let’s get some sleep.” Her fingers squeeze around Clarke’s before letting go. “Or _more_ sleep in your case.”

They walk in silence for a while, weaving through the tunnels of the Ark, and Clarke forces a smile as they pass a few lingering people with curious stares.

“You’ve lost weight.” Abby doesn’t glance her way but just keeps moving, a steady presence at Clarke’s side. She doesn’t hide the concern in her voice, and Clarke knows this is her mother’s way of prodding the boundaries of acceptable conversation. She won’t push, not yet, but she will poke.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve been gone a long time.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re here now though.”

“Yeah.”

Abby’s voice is quieter with her next question, a whisper that still somehow manages to echo inside the Ark. “Are you okay?”

Their arms brush as they walk and Clarke allows herself to close her eyes for a few steps, allows the touch to comfort her. Even after everything, there is something so indefinably soothing about her mother’s presence, a sense of security that somehow always manages to pervade Clarke’s system and calm her. “Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

Clarke tries not to choke on the truth as it escapes, tries not to feel guilty for releasing it instead of holding it in. “Sometimes.”

Her mother’s hand slips into hers again as they turn down the familiar path that Clarke knows will lead to their old room. She can feel Abby’s gaze on the side of her face, sad but calculating like she is preparing to give a diagnosis and a recommended course of treatment. Clarke doesn’t know how to tell her that there isn’t a cure for her sickness. She has already become death.

Some things, she thinks, just can’t be doctored.

When they slip inside the room, Abby squeezes Clarke’s hand before they separate. Clarke strips down to her underwear and shirt, discarding her weapons on the table welded to the floor in the middle of the room, and then climbs into her old bed. She expects to find it comforting, but instead it makes her skin crawl. Something feels wrong about being in a bed by herself. It isn’t the same as sleeping alone on the hard ground of a campsite. Here, it is soft and warm, and it should feel right, but the cool air of the empty space beside her holds an acute sorrow that pricks at Clarke’s skin and presses against her lungs. Lexa’s absence feels too heavy for comfort, and Clarke barely manages a few minutes with her eyes closed before she throws off the blanket and sits up.

She feels empty and out of place and it makes the room seem like it is closing in around her. Her heart thuds heavily in her chest, beats out a harsh rhythm to match the way her stomach rolls, and Clarke is out of bed and across the room before she even fully realizes what she is doing.

When she pulls back the covers on her mother’s bed and slips under, Abby doesn’t say anything but wraps her arms around her, presses a kiss to her temple, and lets out a soft sigh when Clarke curls against her chest.

The painful thudding of Clarke’s heart eases in the warmth of her mother’s embrace, and she feels like she is a kid again—small and still able to hide from the world. 

* * *

Something scratches against her nose when she rolls over, fills her ears with the sound of crinkling paper, and pulls Clarke from sleep. Groaning, she slaps a hand over her face and hears the crinkling sound again. There is a piece of paper stuck to her forehead.

Clarke pulls the paper from her face before rubbing her eyes and letting out a loud yawn. She realizes she is alone and sighs as she stares up at the ceiling. It feels like she hardly slept at all.

The note that was plastered to her forehead is slightly wrinkled but easily smooths when pressed between Clarke’s hand and the mattress. A raspy laugh, heavy with sleep, escapes her when she reads the scratchy words.

_Clarke,_

_Why are you always sleeping when I try to visit you? Your mom said I had to leave you alone and let you rest. I don’t have to wake you to stick this note to your forehead, though, so it counts as leaving you alone. When you’re ‘well rested’, come find me. You know where I’ll be._

_-Raven_

Clarke reads the note twice over, her chest flooding with affection, before climbing out of bed.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the continued support of this story. It means so much to me. This chapter is quite long, and as I mentioned in the previous chapter's note, the soundtrack to this chapter is the same as the last. "Atlas" by Coldplay. I hope you all enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

The water is cold but refreshing as it splashes over her cheeks and streams down her throat in thin trails. Clarke cups her hands under the water again and brings another wave to her face, breathing cleanly through the wash and further waking herself up with each chilling burst. She scrubs a thin cloth over her fingers and between, ridding them of the remaining crimson stains still lingering in the creases and beneath her nails.

She had gone to bed with her fingers still crusty and dry, stained with Algor’s blood, too tired to bother with washing them or rather too distracted to even remember. When she woke, however, her hands were mostly clean. Clarke imagines her mother carefully running a wet cloth over each of her fingers before leaving for the medical bay, trying to rub them clean without jostling Clarke from sleep.

The image makes her throat tighten and burn, and her heart swells until it feels like it no longer fits inside her chest.

Her hair is frizzy when she looks in the mirror, the braids Algor gave her still firmly in place but looser than the day before after another night of sleeping on them. Clarke sighs and unties them before wetting her fingers and running them through the twisted strands. They hang in drab waves around her shoulders until Clarke grabs a tie from her dresser to pull her hair back into a small knotted bun at the base of her head.

A quiet sigh escapes her as she peels off Lexa’s shirt, now heavily stained with blood, before pulling on a fresh one from the small supply in her room. An old leather jacket covers the worn material, hiding all the little holes and frayed seams. She re-dons Lexa’s pants and daggers, holsters her gun last and clips it to her waistband, ignoring the way her stomach seems to sink with the added weight. She wonders when the weapon will begin to feel like a piece of her again, or if it ever will at all. Part of her hopes it never will.

Once her boots are on, Clarke grabs the crinkled note from Raven and smiles as she sticks it in her jacket pocket. She then takes one last look in the mirror. Only a few days free from the haven of Polis, and the old, familiar dark circles have reformed under her eyes like a glaring reminder or perhaps a promise that this reality does not allow for rest. How quickly her ghosts return, lifeless bodies bobbing in the blue ocean of her eyes.

Clarke thinks of the soft furs of the bed she shared with Lexa and the way sleep came so easily when tucked in beside her. Her stomach twists as she lets out a sigh and turns to leave.

Judging by the visible light outside when she passes one of the Ark’s reinforced viewing panels, it is late morning, and Clarke is just stepping through the open doors of the medical bay when she hears her mother’s voice shouting. She takes off before she can even process what she is hearing. Her boots echo against the metal floor with every running step she takes until she is bursting into the small recovery area to find Algor awake and thrashing on his cot and Abby trying, unsuccessfully, to calm him. Her assist stands by with a syringe at the ready, one Clarke assumes is full of sedative, but Abby has her hand up in a clear sign for him to stay back and hold off.

“You need to calm down,” Abby says over Algor’s loud panting and the grunts that escape him every time he tries to get up only to be pressed back down by the guard standing at the head of the cot. “I’m a doctor. I’m not going to hurt you but you need to calm down.”

Clarke rushes to her mother’s side, slips around Abby, and reaches out for Algor’s arm. “Hey,” she says, wrapping her fingers around his forearm. “Hey. It’s me. It’s Clarke.”

“He started thrashing when he came to,” Abby says. “I don’t want to sedate him again until I can get a good read on his status.”

“Hey, look at me,” Clarke urges, squeezing Algor’s arm. “ _Look at_ _me_.”

It is a moment before the thrashing dies down and Algor actually allows his wide, wild eyes to lock with Clarke’s. As soon as they do, Clarke squeezes his arm again and gives him a small smile.

“Just breathe,” she says, and he sucks in a sharp gasp of air. “You’re okay. I promise you’re okay.”

Algor’s fingers fumble over Clarke’s as he shifts his arm until he can wrap his hand in hers, and then their palms lock together and he sucks in another sharp breath followed by another. He squeezes her hand to the point of pain but Clarke just hangs on and keeps her eyes locked on his. Her heart clenches in her chest at the fear in his eyes, and she can imagine how he must have felt waking up in this unfamiliar place with wires coming out of his arms and people he didn’t recognize touching him and talking to him.

Clarke remembers how she felt in Mount Weather, waking up with no idea where she was, where her people were, or who she was dealing with. It had been terrifying, and she isn’t sure how much of a measure of comfort she can offer Algor since she isn’t one of his people, but at the very least she is a familiar face. Clarke figures that has to be better than nothing.

It takes a few moments for the rapid rise and fall of Algor’s chest to slow and even out, and when his breathing finally falls back to normal, he lessens his grip on Clarke’s hand but doesn’t let go.

“Good,” she whispers, smiling at him. “That’s good.”

Algor’s eyes flick from hers to the space behind her where Clarke knows Abby is still hovering.

“That’s my mom,” Clarke tells him. “You may have seen her around before the war. She’s a doctor, a healer. Do you remember me telling you about her?”

He only stares for a moment before giving a small nod.

“She performed surgery on your wound.”

Brow furrowing, Algor slowly raises his free hand and lets his fingertips brush over the large white bandage covering his upper chest and shoulder. There is a bit of blood seeping through the material, likely from a stitch or two that he has managed to pull loose.

“Yes,” Clarke says, nodding as Algor touches the bandage and then looks back to her. “That’s where the arrow hit you, remember?”

He hesitates for a moment but then nods again, and Clarke echoes the action. “You lost a lot of blood, so you’re going to have to stay here for a while so that you can get strong again, okay?”

His lips part and a quiet sound of protest escapes him. His hair swishes against his pillow as he quickly begins to shake his head back and forth, but Clarke squeezes his hand and says, “Hey, no one here is going to hurt you, okay? You have to stay for a while, but I’ll be here too and these people just want to help you.”

Clarke glances back to her mom and Abby takes that as her cue to step forward. She offers Algor a small smile and softly says, “It looks like you pulled a few stitches, so I’m going to need to fix that, but I’ll give you a numbing agent so you don’t feel it. I just need to ask you a few questions and run a quick exam to make sure everything is okay.”

He jerks a bit when she brings a pen light up to flash over his eyes, but it’s quick enough that he merely blinks a few times, squeezing Clarke’s hand, and then settles again.

“Good,” Abby says, and then she dons her stethoscope in order to listen to his heart and breath sounds. When that is finished, she has him release Clarke’s hand just long enough for her to wrap her own hands in both of his. “Squeeze my hands.” He does, and she nods before moving to expose his feet from under the blanket that is covering him. “Move your toes for me, please.” She gives him another nod when his toes wiggle at her command.

“Now,” she says, “can you tell me your name?”

“It’s Algor,” Clarke cuts in. “His name is Algor.”

Abby smiles at her. “Thank you, honey, but I’m just doing a quick neuro check.”

“I know,” Clarke says, “but he doesn’t speak.”

Lips parting slightly, Abby pauses before saying, “Oh. _Oh_. Okay.”

“I think he’s good,” Clarke tells her. “He knew what I was talking about and remembers the attack, and he followed all your commands, so I think he’s good.”

“I think so too,” Abby agrees, and Clarke smiles down at Algor when he relaxes a bit at the words.

“Do you think I could have a minute alone with him?” she asks, glancing from her mother to the two other people in the room—the surgical assist and the guard.

“I need to check his stitches, so—”

“Just a minute, Mom, please?”

Abby sighs before nodding and squeezing Clarke’s arm. “Okay. I’ll be in my office.” She motions for the others to follow as she turns to leave.

“Thanks Mom.”

Once the room is cleared, Clarke turns back to Algor. Despite being alone with him, she still lowers her voice to a whisper when she says, “I sent someone to Polis to inform the Commander about the attack. I’m not sure what will happen, but I know she will at least send help.”

Silence settles between them and Clarke’s eyes are drawn to the crimson stain marring the white material of Algor’s bandage. “The Commander told me that someone might try to hurt her or me.” A heavy sigh wrenches its way up from her chest, and Clarke closes her eyes. “I’m so sorry that you got caught in the crossfire.”

Rough fingers squeeze around her hand, and Clarke opens her eyes to see Algor watching her.

“You’re really strong,” she whispers. “You know that? I can see why you’re a great warrior.”

Algor stares at her for a long time, and Clarke can still feel his eyes on her when she turns to grab a nearby chair and pull it to his bedside. When she collapses into it, Algor holds up his hand and points at Clarke.

“Me?” she asks. “What about me?”

He points at her again and then presses his fist to his chest.

“I don’t understand.”

Algor points to her again and then folds his hand into a fist. He holds it up like he is flexing his arm and then presses it to his chest again.

“Strong?” Clarke asks, and Algor nods firmly.

“I’m strong?” she whispers, and he nods again.

Clarke’s eyes begin to sting, blurring slightly, and she lets out a quiet, shaky breath. “Thank you.”

* * *

Clarke stays with Algor the rest of the day, keeping him calm and allowing him time to adjust to his new surroundings. She knows she needs to visit Raven but she doesn’t want to leave Algor when she can tell he is uneasy, so she stays until he seems as comfortable as he can be under the circumstances.

When Abby brings them both some food, Clarke’s stomach roars like an angry beast and she remembers that she hasn’t eaten in over a day. She wolfs down her rations like she is trying to inhale them, and when she catches Algor watching her with a massive grin on his face, she throws a cotton swab from a nearby tray at him.

“Oh, so you’ll laugh at the way I eat but not at my jokes?”

He only smiles and nods, and Clarke throws another swab. Even when it hits him in the eye and rolls down his cheek, his smile never fades.

It is late when he finally seems to relax enough to sleep, and Clarke drags herself to her mother’s office to find Abby waiting for her. They walk in silence to their room much like they had the night before, and Clarke doesn’t even bother moving toward her own bed. She just crawls in with her mother again and takes comfort in the warm presence beside her.

They lay awake together in the dark for a long time before Abby whispers, “I have to ask.”

“About the attack,” Clarke sighs, nodding against her pillow. “I know.”

“Do you know anything about it?” Abby asks. “He was shot with an arrow, so I’m assuming he was attacked by his own people. Is there some sort of feud going on?”

“Maybe. There could be, but I’m not sure yet. I need to know if you’ve had any trouble from anyone since I left.”

“What do you mean ‘trouble’?”

“Have there been any attacks or threats made from Grounders or anyone?” Clarke asks, and Abby shakes her head.

“No, nothing like that. Everything has been fine.”

“And no one has approached you?” Clarke presses. “No Grounders have tried to communicate with anyone here? No one has made you any offers or anything?”

“No, no, nothing,” Abby tells her, and Clarke sags with relief. Her heart stutters in her chest, though, when Abby stills a moment later. “There was one, actually,” she says, and Clarke’s frozen heart begins to race. “There _is_ one.”

“Is?” Clarke asks, turning more fully toward her mother. “What do you mean? Who?”

“There’s a girl here,” Abby reveals. “Her name is Echo.”

“Echo?”

“Yes. She showed up about a week ago, looking for Bellamy.”

“ _Bellamy_?” That takes Clarke by surprise. “What? Why?”

“Apparently, she was one of the prisoners at Mount Weather.” Clarke closes her eyes and sucks in a breath, forces away the images that rapidly begin to grow like weeds in her mind, sprouting up again and again no matter how many times she attempts to kill them. “She and Bellamy met inside, and I guess they became friendly. I don’t know.”

“Well what is she doing here?” Clarke asks, and Abby shakes her head.

“She seems to want to stay. She showed up saying she needed shelter, and Bellamy assured us that she wasn’t a threat, offered to let her stay with him. We deliberated for a while and a few people were very adamantly against it after everything that happened with the war, and some haven’t been very welcoming since but we agreed to let her stay. We haven’t had any trouble with her.”

Clarke’s stomach lurches with her growing unease. “What is she like?”

“She seems nice, has taught a few of the kids some hunting techniques.”

“Okay,” Clarke says slowly, drawing out the word, because she isn’t sure how to approach this new information. Bellamy apparently trusts Echo, and Clarke trusts Bellamy, but at the same time, she knows the kind of threat they might be facing. She isn’t sure it is safe to trust someone new.

“Clarke.”

Shaking out of her thoughts, Clarke looks back at her mother in the dark. “Sorry,” she whispers.

“Is there something I should know?”

“Maybe. Not yet. Just give me a couple days, okay?”

“Clarke—”

“Trust me, Mom, please,” Clarke says, cutting her off, and Abby lets out a sigh.

“Fine,” she whispers before clearing her throat. “What about this man you brought in with you? How do you know him?”

Clarke runs a hand down her face and rubs at her tired eyes. “It’s a long story,” she says, but she knows that won’t deter her mother.

“You’ve been with them all this time, haven’t you?” Abby whispers. “Grounders.”

The silence that settles in is thick and awkward, riddled with tension that neither knows how to break so they just let it build and flow and suck the air from the room until it becomes too hard to breathe.

“Clarke.”

“Yes.” They fall into silence again, and Clarke feels like there is an invisible force pressing down on her chest making it hard for her to breathe. She can feel the questions rolling off her mother in waves, but more than that, she can feel the love and the fear and the hurt, and Clarke feels like she is drowning in it all.

She takes a deep breath and releases it in a whisper. “I’m sorry.” The words feel like earthquakes between her teeth. “I’m sorry about the way I left.”

Her mother’s swallow is audible as is the sob that sticks in her throat. “I was terrified,” she confesses after a moment, and her voice is wet and shaky like all her worry has gathered in her throat, seeping into every word as it exits. “Bellamy kept it a secret as long as he could. He tried to give you time.”

“He knew I needed it.”

“I wanted to send out a search party as soon as we realized. It had been hours by then.”

It pains Clarke to admit but the shadows in the room reach in and pull the words free. “I wouldn’t have come back even if you did.”

Abby’s face makes a swishing sound against the pillow as she nods. “That’s what Bellamy said. He told us not to chase after you, that you made the choice to leave, that you had to, that I wouldn’t understand.” Her voice croaks with every word, all sorrow and tremors, and Clarke aches at the sound. “I didn’t. I _don’t_ , but I’ve hurt you more, already, than I ever wanted to, so I chose to respect your choice. I chose to let you go, and I just hoped that you would come back.”

Clarke’s eyes burn and she rubs her knuckles against them to try to soothe the ache. Her hands come away wet, and she swallows thickly around the lump that has grown tight and pulsing in her throat—an unstable explosive on the verge of triggering.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Abby whispers. “I couldn’t stop imagining you out there in the woods, cold, afraid, hungry … _hurt_.” Her voice breaks and she presses a hand over her mouth to muffle a sob.

Clarke’s own voice comes out strained, hardly more than a whisper, when she says, “I’m fine, Mom.” She shifts in the bed until Abby can wrap around her in an almost painfully tight embrace. Her fingers dig into the material of Abby’s shirt, and that only seems to bring a harder sob up from her mother’s throat. “I’m okay.”

She chooses not to confess just how cold, hungry, and hurt she had actually managed to become while wandering carelessly through the woods, chooses not to give any breath of reality to the phantom images of Abby’s dreams. So, she just rubs her mother’s back and squeezes her tightly and repeats over and over, “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

She doesn’t tell her that she is haunted, doesn’t try to explain that she walked away from Camp Jaha so broken that she is surprised there aren’t pieces of her now embedded in the earth.

When Abby calms and their grips on one another loosen, Clarke sighs and whispers, “I just needed some time.”

“Where did you go?” Abby asks, and Clarke’s heart kicks into gear, thudding out a heavy rhythm against her ribs.

“To Polis.”

“Polis?”

Clarke licks her lips. “It’s a city,” she says. “The Grounders refer to it as their capital.”

“That’s where you’ve been?”

Clarke nods. “I’ve been staying there.” She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, bracing herself. “With Lexa.”

Silence follows for an achingly long moment before her mother speaks.

“With the Commander ….” The words come out slow but steady, no judgment. Clarke knows it is there though. She can feel it thickening the air between them.

“Yes.”

“Clarke, she—”

“So did you.” Clarke doesn’t give her the chance to start, let alone finish.

Abby jerks in the bed before rolling over again to face Clarke more fully, and Clarke can see her widened eyes in the dark. “ _What_?”

“Lexa,” Clarke whispers. “She turned her back on me because she thought it was the best way, the _only_ way, to save all her people. I don’t agree with her decision but I understand it. She has a duty to her people and she did what she thought was right. You can’t hate her for that, Mom. It’s the same thing I did at Mount Weather, and it’s the same thing you did … to Dad.”

The silence that filters in this time is so heavy that Clarke can practically taste it, slipping in, bitter and thick. She chokes on it and chokes on it and waits for her mother to say something, _anything_. After several long moments, though, Abby only lets out a wet sigh and rolls away from Clarke, putting her back to her.

Clarke’s stomach sinks as she closes her eyes. Despite the heat of the body next to her, everything just feels empty and cold. Fresh tears prick against her eyelids and Clarke misses Lexa, the silent, secure warmth of her pressed into her skin and into her soul.

* * *

Little zaps and pops reach her ears before she ever even steps into the room, and Clarke can’t help but to smile. When she rounds the corner, she finds Raven bent over a hunk of metal that Clarke doesn’t even try to identify. Her hands are adorned in gloves, her eyes protected by goggles, and she pokes and prods with tools and wires that cause sparks to jump into the air.

Clarke takes a few more steps into the room, but stops cold when she realizes that Raven isn’t alone. Seated across from her and just slightly hidden behind a jutting wall, are Monty and Jasper, and they both go as still as Clarke does the moment they realize she is there.

Raven’s head pops up and Clarke sees her lips pull with a smile. “Clarke,” she murmurs, the sound soft and affectionate. Her smile quickly stutters and falls from her lips, though, as the situation sinks in and she glances back and forth between Clarke and Jasper.

“Um, hi,” Clarke says after a moment, clearing her throat and breaking the ice. She doesn’t let herself avoid Jasper’s gaze despite how much she wants to, and her stomach rolls as she watches his jaw clench and his eyes go hard. His nostrils flare as he sucks in a hard breath and then pushes roughly out of his seat.

“Jasper,” she tries to say, but his name gets tangled in her throat and sticks there like it can’t find its way free. It sounds more like a gurgled plea than anything, but Jasper doesn’t seem to care to hear it anyway. He rounds the table and shoves past her out the door.

Monty stops next to her, and Clarke hates the way her eyes burn and water when he places a hand on her arm. “He just needs some time,” he says, and then he pulls her into a tight hug. “I’m glad you’re okay, Clarke.”

She barely gets her arms around him before he is letting her go to chase after Jasper. Everything happens so quickly that Clarke can do little more than simply stand and blink, feeling slanted and uneven, unable to regain her balance. She nearly jumps when Raven’s hand wraps around her upper arm and her familiar face swims into view.

“Hey.”

Clarke swallows and tries not to let her lip wobble when she does. She blinks a few times to clear away the wet haze from her eyes and focuses on Raven. “Hey,” she whispers, reaching out to grasp the other girl’s arm.

“It’s true what Monty said,” Raven tells her. “Jasper just needs time. He hasn’t been the same since everything. He doesn’t talk to Bellamy anymore either, barely even talks to Monty. Give him time.”

“Yeah,” Clarke breathes, nodding.

Their hands slide down each other’s arms until their fingers are clasping, and they squeeze briefly before letting go.

“So you finally decided to drag your ass down here, huh?” Raven teases, motioning for Clarke to follow her as she limps over to a small couch in the corner of the room.

Clarke knows she is trying to lighten the moment, and her chest floods with gratitude. She lets a smile slip across her lips as she shakes her head and says, “Yeah, nice note." Raven grins and Clarke can't help but to laugh. "I would have been here sooner but things have been a little crazy.”

“Yeah, I heard you brought some Grounder with you. Bellamy said he was injured.”

Nodding, Clarke drops down next to her on the couch. “His name is Algor. He’s a … friend.” She isn’t quite sure how to explain or whether she wants to bother explaining at all, so she changes the subject. “So, how are you? How have you been since everything? How’s your leg?”

“Good,” Raven says, shrugging a shoulder. “Hurts sometimes, but I deal with it. How are you?”

“I’m okay.”

Raven arches a brow as she says, “That didn’t sound very convincing.”

“Maybe I’m just not as strong as you are.” Clarke tries to laugh but it comes out as more of a strangled sigh than anything, and Raven nudges her thigh with her knee.

“Maybe you’re not, but you’re still strong.”

Clarke licks her lips and shakes her head, changes the subject again. “Have you gone on any of the trips back to Mount Weather?”

“A few, yeah,” Raven says, running her fingers over her hair and down the back of her ponytail.

Clarke glances to the door briefly before turning back to Raven and lowering her voice. “Has my mom or anyone asked you about the systems there, like how to get things up and running or anything like that?”

“Why?” Raven asks, brows furrowing. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that Mount Weather is a giant weapon and our people are a little hot-headed when it comes to revenge.”

Raven’s eyes widen for a moment but then she just lets out a sigh and nods. “I was a little afraid that the council might try something like that, too,” she says, “but no. No one has asked me about any of it or made any suspicious orders. Monty and I _have_ been in their system, but only to see what sort of files they had, and get blueprints for the place just to see if they had any rooms we weren’t aware of and what kind of equipment they had in the place. There are tons of files in there on the people who were living there and on the Grounders too, like the different clans and their locations and the leaders of each one. There’s an entire section for the Commander, and there are even a few files in there on some of us. It’s crazy extensive. We could do some serious damage, so I’m actually kind of surprised but really glad that no one has proposed we take over that place. I think maybe it’s just too hard for people to even think about right now.”

“The last thing we need is another war.”

“Agreed, though I can’t say I’m not still pissed about everything. Lincoln told us what happened with the Commander.”

“Yeah,” Clarke says, “but you know it’s never as simple as that. Every story has two sides.”

Raven narrows her eyes, but Clarke quickly clears her throat and averts her gaze. “So, my mom says that there’s a Grounder that’s been staying here, other than Lincoln of course.”

“Oh yeah, Bellamy’s girl,” Raven says, nodding. “I don’t actually know if there’s anything going on between them but he’s pretty much always with her.”

“And?” Clarke presses. “What’s she like?”

“She seems cool enough, though a little prickly.” She lets out a raspy laugh. “Really interested in all this stuff, which is cool. I don’t meet a lot of people who actually want to hear me talk about it.”

That catches Clarke by surprise, and her head snaps up. “What?” she asks. “What stuff? Engineering?”

Raven shrugs her shoulder again. “Well not the more intricate stuff, but she seems pretty fascinated by all this.” She waves a hand over the station and all of her work. “She sits in here sometimes and asks me about stuff, you know like how we shut down the mountain and how to make radios and weapons and all that. It’s crazy how much they don’t know, Clarke, like even a simple Molotov Cocktail seemed to blow her mind.”

Clarke’s heart starts to pound in her chest. “You showed her how to make a bomb?”

“Well, no, I didn’t _show_ her,” Raven tells her with a laugh. “I just talked about it a bit. Why?”

Rapid-fire thoughts ping through Clarke’s mind like gunfire, burning behind her eyes and making her stomach lurch and roll. She forces air in through her nose and down into her lungs, tries to appear as calm as possible. “No reason,” she chokes out, and she can tell that Raven doesn’t buy it, but surprisingly the other girl doesn’t push.

Raven nods slowly, simply watching Clarke and letting the silence seep in. She only lets it linger between them for a moment, though, before she says, “So, are we going to sit here and keep making idle conversation or are we going to talk about the fact that you walked off without a word a month ago and left us all thinking you were dead?”

The question hits Clarke like a hammer to the chest, and she sucks in a short gasp at the impact, but she can’t say she is terribly surprised. Raven has never been one to dance around things, and she has certainly never been one to pull any punches. It’s something that Clarke respects about her immensely, even if it does knock the wind out of her at times.

Clarke twists her fingers together in her lap and stares down at the fleshy puzzle they make. It’s hard to make her voice work properly when she says, “I had to go. I couldn’t breathe, Raven.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t been able to breathe for a while now,” Raven whispers, and her eyes are fixed on her knees. Her fingers pick at the frayed material of her pants, and she lets out a sigh that Clarke feels like needles pricking her all over her body. “You get used to it.”

“Raven ….” Clarke pushes up off the couch and makes her way toward the door. “I really need to go.” And she really does. It isn’t just about an escape from a conversation she knows is bound to only get harder with every breath, though she certainly aches for one. The information about Echo is disturbing, and though Clarke doesn’t want to jump to conclusions because the girl truly could just be trying to fit in or make friends, something about it doesn’t sit right with her. She needs to get ahead of this while she can.

A hand grabs Clarke’s arm and spins her back around. “You just left, Clarke.” Raven’s eyes are suddenly glossy, and her jaw is rigid and clenched. “You didn’t explain. You didn’t say goodbye. You just left, and after everything ….”

Raven swallows thickly, and Clarke watches her throat move with the action. It is an easier sight to digest than the rising flood in Raven’s eyes. “There are people here who care about you, Clarke. There are people here who need you—”

“And that’s why I had to leave,” Clarke says, cutting her off. “I couldn’t be a leader. I couldn’t look at everyone here and remember all the things I had to do to save them. I needed space from that.”

“The things that _we_ did,” Raven says, correcting her. “The things _we_ did to save them.” She takes another step toward Clarke. “I know you think it’s all on you, but we all played our parts. _I_ blew up that bridge. _I_ rigged the bomb that burned all those Grounders. _I_ shut down the power grid at Mount Weather. You may have called the shots, Clarke, but you weren’t the only one involved. All those lives—that blood isn’t only on your hands. Mine aren’t clean either.”

Clarke forces herself to look up, and Raven’s cheeks are tracked with tears but her voice doesn’t shake when she speaks. She is forever strong.

“And when I say that there are people here who need you,” she says, “I don’t just mean they need a leader.” She steps in and wraps her arms around Clarke, and the heavy breath that escapes Clarke makes her feel like she is collapsing. She stills in Raven’s arms only a moment before bringing her arms up to return the embrace, clutching at her back and resting her chin on Raven’s shoulder.

“We’ve got plenty of leaders here, Clarke,” Raven whispers into the embrace. “There are people here who just need _you_.”

* * *

Clarke meets Echo, by chance, the next morning.

She visits with Algor first thing and climbs onto his cot to let him braid her hair again. She can tell that it pains him to move his arm, but braiding seems to make him feel more like himself, so she allows it. The smile on his face afterward is enough to prove that, sometimes, a little pain is worth it.

When she leaves the medical bay, Clarke sets out to find Bellamy. There are a few things she wants to know about the woman he has taken under his wing, but it is that very woman she finds instead.

Echo is tall and skinny, graceful in a way that Clarke has come to associate with the Grounders and clearly quite strong as Clarke finds her carrying a large stack of wood to the store they keep for fire. Once the logs are dropped onto the pile, Echo turns to find Clarke watching her. They stand a few feet apart and simply stare for one long, awkward moment before Echo tilts her head and says, “Clarke, yes?”

Clarke nods. “And you’re Echo.”

“Yes.”

“So, you’re staying in Camp Jaha?” Clarke asks her. “Why not go home to your clan?”

Echo is quiet a moment, still watching Clarke. Her gaze is calculating as if measuring up an opponent or studying an animal she intends to hunt, but then she allows her lips to pull with a small smile. “Home is not always where one grows,” she says. “It can be whatever you choose it to be.”

Clarke is surprised by the impact those words have on her. She connects with them in a profound way, because the truth in them is one that has grown steadily in her since she was dropped to the earth and especially in the last month. Every moment she has spent back in Camp Jaha has only affirmed that she no longer thinks of the Ark or this place as her home. It is Polis that comes to mind when she thinks of the word—the laughter of children playing and the call of merchants, Lexa’s beautiful green eyes sparkling in the early morning sunlight as it streams through their balcony door.

 _Their_.

Clarke’s heart seizes in her chest. All that she had in Polis had not been merely hers but _theirs_ —hers and Lexa’s. That is home. _Lexa_ is home.

“I know what you mean,” Clarke whispers, softening, and her mouth feels dry with the truth. Her heart feels swollen but somehow lighter, and Clarke can’t shake the image of Lexa from her mind.

Echo’s shoulders relax at the words, and she gives a nod.

“Um, are my people treating you well?” Clarke asks her, shuffling on her feet because her mind is hazy and she isn’t sure how to proceed.

“Yes,” Echo says. “I have much gratitude for what your people did at the Mountain. I thought I would die in that cage, but Bellamy saved me. All your people did.”

“So did _your_ people,” Clarke tells her, thinking of Lexa’s sad eyes in the glow of torches.

_The duty to protect my people comes first._

Echo doesn’t argue the claim but merely purses her lips before giving a swift, though seemingly reluctant, nod. Clarke can’t quite figure out why that bothers her so much.

* * *

Echo becomes her main focus over the course of the following days, and Clarke watches the way she interacts with the others, the various tasks she carries out throughout each day. Echo spends most of her time with Bellamy. They hunt together, build fires together, eat together, spend time talking and laughing, pushing at one another like teenagers with crushes. Clarke finds it all very amusing, and for the most part, Echo seems like a genuine person, but something about her, about the whole situation, really rubs her the wrong way.

It’s the way Echo interacts with everyone who _isn’t_ Bellamy that bothers her; or rather, it’s the specific people she chooses to interact with. Clarke watches her seek out Abby and Kane, and it seems like idle conversation, really, but Clarke knows all too well that if you want to get in good with a group of people, you go for their leaders first.

She watches Echo spend a little time with Monty and Jasper, and they talk about the Ark, about the way it runs, which Clarke finds particularly peculiar. And just like Raven had told Clarke, Echo makes time each day to visit with the mechanic as well.

Clarke makes random excuses to be there when she does. She asks Raven to help her figure out a way for Algor to get in contact with her if he needs to, and Raven hooks her up with a couple of radios. She shows Clarke where to have Algor press to send a sequence of beeping sounds through the device instead of having to talk, and Clarke pretends to have trouble with it. She lingers in the station, fiddling with the radio while Raven goes back to chatting with Echo about chemical reactions and other such things, and Clarke’s suspicions rise steadily higher.

It is on the fourth day, though, that the scale finally tips.

Lincoln returns from Polis on his own, galloping in at full speed, shortly after dawn. He seeks Clarke out immediately, having Abby wake her in order to inform her that Octavia had no trouble at the gate and made it safely inside the walls. The Commander apparently took audience very quickly, because a return party was sent out the same day, though he didn’t get a chance to see who all was a part of it, because he had to stay ahead of them on the journey back.

“They will be arriving soon,” he tells her, and Clarke nods and lets out a quiet sigh of relief.

She determines to wait outside for the party, Lincoln accompanying her, and they strike up a fire because the sun has been up for less than an hour and the morning air is cold. They are quietly discussing Lincoln’s trip nearly an hour later when Bellamy comes out of the Ark with Echo. Clarke’s eyes are drawn to her as they have been over the last few days, only this time she notices that Echo is wearing a gray fur-lined cape that she hasn’t seen her wear before. Her heart nearly stops when she sees the symbol branded onto the gray material.

It is the same symbol that had branded the flag on the arrow that pierced Algor’s chest. Clarke smacks Lincoln’s arm to get his attention.

“Do you know her?” she asks, nodding toward Echo. Her heart is hammering so hard that it hurts.

Lincoln shakes his head. “I met her the day she came here.”

“What’s that symbol on her cape?”

“The symbol of her clan,” Lincoln tells her. “She is _Azgeda_.”

“What’s that?” Clarke asks, turning toward him.

His lip curls a bit when he says, “Ice Nation.”

Clarke’s blood freezes inside her veins as if those words have somehow jumped inside her and turned her cold. Jumping to her feet, she breathes out a harsh, “Oh no,” before taking off toward the Ark. She walks quickly but calmly until she makes it inside, not wanting to alert the Grounder, but as soon as she makes it inside, she takes off at a sprint toward the medical bay.

“Clarke, what is it?” Lincoln hisses from behind her, running after. Clarke’s ears are filled with the sound of her own pulse, though, pounding like a warm drum, and she can’t stop. She can’t speak. She needs to find her mother.

Abby isn’t in the medical bay, but Clarke finds her in the council room with Kane, and she nearly shouts with relief when she sees them.

“Clarke, what is it?” Abby asks, startling at the way Clarke stumbles into the room wide-eyed and out of breath.

“I need you to come with me,” Clarke says. “Both of you.”

“What for?” Kane asks, and Clarke swallows the lump rising in her throat.

“To arrest someone.”

* * *

“Clarke, are you sure?” Abby asks as she walks beside Clarke through the tunnels of the Ark.

“No,” Clarke tells her, “but I’ve got plenty of reason to be suspicious. Please just trust me on this, Mom.”

“Bellamy is going to put up a fight,” Kane says from her other side, and Clarke’s chest floods with dread.

“I know.”

Just before they step outside, Clarke stops and turns toward the three guards following them. “I’m pretty sure the camp is being watched, so we need to make this as quick and clean as possible. Don’t set off any alarms or call attention to what we’re doing.”

She turns to Abby. “I want you to go out there and ask if she and Bellamy can come inside to help you with something. As soon as she is inside, we need to act. Everyone got it?”

Clarke glances around to the others, and when everyone nods their agreement, she sends her mother out into the sun.

* * *

“You’ve been gone almost a month, and we’ve been taking care of things here without you,” Bellamy says, and his eyes are wide and angry, his voice hard. His nose is bloody and starting to bruise from taking an elbow to the face in an attempt to stop the guards from cuffing Echo. “Don’t you think _we_ should be making this call instead of you?”

“I’m doing what I have to do, Bellamy,” Clarke tells him. “She’s a threat.”

“ _We’re_ the ones who have been around her!” he shouts, and Clarke tries not to wince at the anger in his voice. It softens a moment later when he steps closer to her and says, “Clarke, please, I’m telling you she’s not a threat.”

Clarke wraps her hand around his shoulder and squeezes. “If she’s not, then she has nothing to worry about,” she says. “We can’t take the chance of letting her walk freely around if she is, though. You need to trust me on this. I know you like her and you don’t think we have anything to worry about, but Bellamy, I know things that you don’t.”

“Then tell me!” He runs a hand through his hair as he paces in front of her.

Clarke signals for the guards to follow her as she moves toward the stockade, but Bellamy quickly jumps to blocks the doorway. He holds his arms out from his sides as he stares her down. “You’ve been gone almost a month, and the first thing you want to do when you get back is throw someone you don’t even know in the stockade like a criminal? Clarke, she hasn’t done anything!”

“Then she won’t mind answering a few questions.” Clarke clenches her jaw. She hates the way Bellamy is looking at her, like she is the enemy, or worse, like she has lost her mind. Still, she stands her ground no matter how sick it makes her feel.

“Now step back,” she says, and her voice remains hard and clear despite the tightness in her throat, “or you can join her.”

* * *

Clarke sucks in gulp after gulp of air, willing it to soothe her as she steps out of the Ark and walks as far and fast from its entrance as she can. She had taken off as soon as the guards had finished locking Echo up. She couldn’t bear the heat of Bellamy’s glare any longer, the uneasy way that everyone seemed to be silently questioning her decision despite going along with it. She needs a moment to herself, a moment to breathe.

She escapes to the back of the camp, climbs up on a leg of the Ark and settles onto the cool metal. It is high enough up that she can see out over the camp and into the surrounding trees but she doubts anyone will notice her. Every breath is clean and cool, and Clarke feels it spilling into her and over her like a shower—washing her of her burdens, even if for only a moment.

The sun hangs over the camp, yawns across its expanse like it is slowly stretching its bounds, and people mill about beneath its bright orange umbrella. Laughter dances through the air, presses against Clarke’s ears in bittersweet kisses as a few kids push at each other and parents trade stories while starting their daily duties, their voices mixing together to make jumbled sounds that barely reach Clarke’s ears, and teens play games all too likely to get them in trouble.

Clarke smiles sadly at the sight, her heart clenching painfully beneath her ribs. She wonders if any of them _see_ her, if they see the many wicked, weighted worlds she carries on her shoulders for them.

It’s fascinating, Clarke thinks, to feel so much for so many people she barely knows. She wonders if they will ever understand what she has done to keep them alive.

A stirring in the calm green out ahead of her catches her eye and pulls her attention, and Clarke’s heart jumps into her throat when she looks toward the tree line. A stunning white steed steps from between the trees, and though it is flanked by several other, darker horses, Clarke’s gaze remains fixed to the white steed’s rider. Her lips part as she wipes the wetness from her eyes and locks onto the rigid form of the rider, onto long, familiar brown hair and streaks of black war paint that she would recognize across any distance.

“Lexa.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the continued support everyone. I sincerely appreciate you all. The chapter gives some great insight and there will be a lot going on in the next chapter. Things are steadily heating up, perhaps in more ways than one. :) I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "John's Walk" by Jamin Winans. I hope you all enjoy. XO-Chrmdpoet

A crowd has already amassed at the gate by the time Clarke climbs down from her perch and races toward the front of camp. She pushes through the sea of bodies in an effort to get closer, and some yield to her while others are content to block her way so they can continue yelling random insults at the people on the other side of the gate.

"We request entry," Lexa says, and Clarke nearly stops to close her eyes at the sound of her voice. It is like being washed in the feeling of being home again, like collapsing against a pillow after a particularly long and difficult day. It presses against her, soft and comforting, and Clarke wants to sink further.

As she draws nearer, she sees that the man nearest the gate is Miller’s dad. He holds his gun at the ready and shakes his head. “You’re not welcome here anymore,” he replies evenly, and shouts of agreement ring out through the crowd around them.

Lexa sits rigidly atop her steed just outside the gate, expression solemn and unmoved but for her wandering eyes. They dart over the crowd, seeking, and Clarke knows she is the one Lexa is looking for. The Commander is flanked by four other people—Indra to her immediate left, a bald man Clarke doesn’t recognize to her immediate right. Octavia is positioned on Indra’s left, and just behind her is another warrior Clarke doesn’t know, a man with a tattoo of a bird on his neck.

"One of your own brought us here," Lexa says, tilting her head in Octavia's direction, "and one of your own sent for us as well."

"Who?" The voice is Abby’s, and Clarke sees her mother just ahead of her, nearing the gate with Kane at her side. Her tone makes it clear that she already knows who sent for Lexa, but that doesn't stop her from asking. "Who sent for you?"

"I did." Clarke pushes through the last few people blocking her way and steps into the space beside her mother. Gaze flicking up to lock with Lexa’s, Clarke feels a gentle stirring in her stomach when she catches the flicker of relief that briefly calms the hard lines of Lexa’s face. She licks her dry lips and clears her throat before saying, "Let them through."

"Clarke, I think we should talk about this first," Abby says. She signals to Miller’s father. "Allow Octavia through, of course, but the others will have to wait outside until we have discussed what we would like to do."

"We need their help," Clarke hisses, latching onto Abby’s elbow and pulling her to face her. "And they _need_ to come inside.”

“They can wait while we deliberate,” Kane counters, but Clarke shakes her head.

She squeezes her mother’s arm. “Mom, it isn't safe for them to be outside the fence."

"It isn't safe for them to be _inside_ the fence," says another voice, and Clarke turns to see Bellamy standing rigidly behind her. She wonders how long he has been there. "Unless your plan is to let them in so you can lock them up for questioning." He gives Clarke a hard look, and her throat goes dry. "Something tells me that’s not the case though."

“The Sky People have nothing to fear from us,” Lexa announces. When Clarke turns back to her, Lexa looks positively unperturbed by their discussion. Her face is as stony as it was before she got a glimpse of Clarke, and if anything, she looks bored with the deliberation. It almost makes Clarke laugh, but the way her nerves seem to be sparking and her stomach churning is enough to keep that laugh buried inside her chest.

"And you actually expect us to trust _you_?" Bellamy counters, and Lexa arches an eyebrow.

"Not in the least," she replies, "but I have no ill will toward your people. I am here because we were summoned. We seek only to aid you."

"The last time we let you 'aid' us, you left us to die," Bellamy says, stepping around Clarke and closer to the gate, "so I'm not sure how you can expect us to believe anything you say."

"Bell,” Octavia says, but he puts up a hand.

“Octavia, please.” He shakes his head. “You should have told me that this was the reason you were leaving. You shouldn’t have brought her here.”

“I didn’t know she would come,” Octavia argues, and before Bellamy can respond, Lexa raises her voice and speaks over everyone.

"It is unfortunate," she says, "what came to pass at Mount Weather. Our withdrawal of aid was not an intended action, but the decision I made was done to ensure the safety and survival of my people. I would say many of you here understand such a decision."

"We understand that you sacrificed us to save yourselves," Bellamy spits, and Lexa narrows her eyes and tilts her head.

"And would you not sacrifice another for your own life?" she challenges. "Would you not sacrifice not only one life but _many_ for the life of your sister?" She motions toward Octavia again, who drops her head into a bow, gaze fixing on the ground.

Bellamy gapes at her, and Clarke knows Lexa has backed him into a corner. He would make countless sacrifices for Octavia, and there isn’t a single person who doesn’t know it. He had thrown a radio into a creek and sacrificed a great many of their own people to save himself, and Clarke knows there is no way for him to refute the truth.

Discomfort itches along the back of her neck and down her spine. The truth always catches up to them, and it never lets go once it does.

"Or any one of you,” Lexa says, calling out to the crowd of Sky People pressed against the gate. “For your sons or your daughters? Your mates? The people you are sworn to protect?”

The last of the dissenting murmurs dies down, and the crowd becomes eerily quiet. Only Lexa’s commanding voice touches the air, like a war speech or even a subtle plea, or perhaps a strange amalgam of the two. Clarke’s heart feels like it is twice the size, pushing against her ribs with every word.

“Your people were willing to risk war, an act that would cost countless lives, to protect a single murderer.”

Clarke closes her eyes for just a moment, sucks in a sharp breath through her nose to try to soothe the stabbing pain she fears the memory of Finn, his wild eyes at the end, and his blood on her hands will always cause. When she opens them again, she sees Lexa’s green eyes locked onto Bellamy like they can see into his soul.

“I believe,” the Commander says, “that you are quite familiar with the decision I made, Bellamy of the Sky People, and had it been Clarke who chose to sacrifice my people for yours, you would have stood by her, would you not?"

Bellamy’s jaw is clenched, and his hands tighten in and out of fists at his sides. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, but he cannot hold Lexa’s gaze. He glances to Clarke, eyes distant and haunted, and Clarke remembers the way he cried beside her, pressed against the trunk of a tree with the thick weight of his past in his throat.

_My mother, if she knew what I’ve done, who I am. She raised me to be better, to be good, and all I do is hurt people. I’m a monster._

“She’s right.”

Clarke and Bellamy both turn to see Raven slipping through the last line of people separating them. She leans on her good leg as she glances from Lexa to Clarke and finally to Bellamy. “You would have supported Clarke,” she tells him. “We all would have.”

“You _did_ ,” Clarke murmurs, reaching out to squeeze Bellamy’s upper arm, “when we pulled the lever.”

Bellamy nods and lets out a quiet sigh. He and Clarke both know the weight of their decision as well as the truth of it, and no matter how often they tell themselves that they did what they had to do, the simple fact of the matter is that they chose their people over another. There were hundreds of people in Mount Weather, and when it came down to choice, Clarke thinks that perhaps it should have been about numbers—the most survivors, the greater the win. Instead, it was about family. They chose the people they knew, the people they grew up with, the people they considered to be their own. The circumstances could change a thousand times, but Clarke knows that she would choose her people over another every time, just as Bellamy would, and unlike Lexa, they aren’t sworn to do so.

Clarke squeezes Bellamy’s arm again as Raven steps around them and moves closer to Abby.

“Look, I don’t trust her,” she says, flicking her hand in Lexa’s direction, “but we’ve all done shit we aren’t proud of, and I trust Clarke. So if she says we should let them in, then we should let them in.”

Heart swelling at the words, Clarke swallows down the lump in her throat and glances around the crowd. She takes in all their now somber faces, shadowed in guilt, before turning toward Abby and Kane.

Eyes glossy, Abby lets out a sigh and signals for the gate to be opened, and with every inch it is pulled, Clarke breathes just a bit easier.

* * *

The Grounders and Octavia enter the camp on horseback but dismount once they are inside, and Clarke's entire body feels like it is wound too tightly. Octavia runs toward the Ark where Clarke knows Lincoln is waiting, and Lexa passes her horse off to the warrior with the bird tattoo before slowly making her way toward Clarke. Tingles ripple down Clarke’s back and pool at the base of her spine as she watches the approach. She feels like she is on the verge of exploding.

"Clarke," Lexa greets evenly, her gaze flicking from Clarke’s eyes to her braided hair and then down the length of her body as if checking for visible injuries, and Clarke draws in a long, deep breath through her nose.

"Commander,” she says, licking her lips. She can feel everyone’s eyes on her. “Thank you for coming."

Lexa gives only a firm nod, though Clarke thinks she sees the slightest hint of a smile, and she can't stop thinking about candlelit teary kisses, and a mural of memories, and the painstakingly slow removal of clothes.

She clears her throat. "Follow me."

Once inside the Ark, they make their way to the council room, and Abby and Kane sit while Clarke stands awkwardly nearby with Lexa at her side and Indra hovering behind them, body tense like that of a wild animal trapped inside a cage.

Abby points to the empty seats around the table. “Sit, please, and then maybe someone can finally explain to us what is going on here.”

"Actually,” Clarke says, shifting awkwardly, “maybe it would be better if I speak to Lexa alone first.”

Lexa's expression remains still and unnerved, entirely passive. Abby's, on the other hand, cycles through an assortment of reactions in a startlingly short amount of time—surprise, confusion, skepticism, dislike.

"What?” she asks. “Why?”

"Just so she and I can be on the same page before we try to explain everything.” Before her mother can say anything, Clarke presses her hand into the small of Lexa’s back and nudges her toward the door. "We'll be back."

"Clarke!"

"Right back!" Clarke says over her shoulder as she and Lexa quickly exit the room with Indra right behind them.

They take the tunnels of the Ark at a fast pace, and Clarke is pushing open the door to her and her mother’s room in what feels like the blink of an eye.

“Indra, _ste hir_ ,” Lexa commands, and Indra gives her a firm nod before posting up just outside the door.

Clarke walks toward the center of the room with her back to Lexa. Her fingers tangle together in front of her body, and she pulls at her knuckles almost anxiously, fingertips rubbing the wooden curve of her ring. When she hears the door close behind her, her stomach begins to stir again, and it is like the air has suddenly become very dry and sparking. “You got here fast.”

"Yes," is all Lexa says, and Clarke closes her eyes briefly before turning to face the Commander.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“No.”

Lexa stands only a few feet from her, hands clasped loosely in front of her body and spine as straight and regal as ever. Her eyes stand out against the stark black of her face paint, and Clarke feels like she could get swept up in that green tide and drift forever.

"Algor was shot," Clarke says. It's the first thing she can think to say that doesn't have to do with how her heart is racing or how her stomach won't stop rolling or how she hasn’t been able to sleep without Lexa. "It hit him in the upper chest, and he needed surgery. I got him here as fast as I could and he lost a lot of blood, but my mom saved him. It's going to take a while for him to fully heal, though."

Lexa dips her head down in a single slow nod. "I will give your mother my gratitude."

Nodding, Clarke chews her lip and glances to the floor.

“You have it as well,” Lexa says, and Clarke looks back up at her.

“Have what?”

“My gratitude.”

“Oh.” Clarke’s throat suddenly feels too tight and itching, and though she swallows to try to soothe it, the ache persists. “I couldn’t let him die.” The toe of her boot scuffs against the floor as she shifts in place. “I just … I needed to save him.”

She lets out a slow, shaky breath and blinks away the tears that form in her eyes at the simple way Lexa nods and says, “I understand, Clarke.”

The short stretch of empty space between them feels like a gaping canyon, and Clarke feels like she is teetering on the edge. Tension pulls at her muscles, straining every inch, and her body feels taut and aching.

"I have one of your people here," she says after a moment, unwilling to let the silence build any longer. It feels like they are dancing a giant circle around a fathomless pit of all the things they both are too timid to say. One is always waiting for the other to fall or leap first. "A girl named Echo. She’s locked up in the stockade.”

"I recognize the name," Lexa says. "She was present in the relief camp."

"Well, according to my mom, she showed up about a week before I did asking for sanctuary and saying that she knew Bellamy from when they were both inside Mount Weather,” Clarke tells her. “She's been staying with him since she showed up, and I've been watching her for a few days now.”

"And?"

"And she's been making a point of spending time with the leaders here, and not only them but with the tech kids and Raven too.” Lexa arches a painted brow at that, and Clarke nods. “Raven said she's been asking a lot of questions, including how we make weapons, and I heard her asking about chemical reactions myself. Does that seem right to you?"

Lexa purses her lips. "No, it does not."

"But I only locked her up this morning when I saw her wearing a cape with the same symbol on it as the one that was on the flag I sent you. It was wrapped around the arrow that hit Algor.”

Lexa's expression goes stony, and Clarke’s stomach lurches.

"Lincoln told me it was the symbol of the Ice Nation,” Clarke says, and Lexa gives a nod. “I don’t know if she has actually done anything wrong, but I had her put in the stockade so we can question her without her trying to slip away or something." She runs a hand over her hair, feeling the tight patterns of her braids, and lets out a breathy, sad laugh. “Everyone thinks I’ve lost my mind.”

The air rushes out of her in a heavy sigh when Lexa takes a few slow steps forward to eliminate the space between them. "Your mind is sound, Clarke,” she murmurs, and though she doesn’t touch her, Clarke is comforted even by the warmth radiating from Lexa’s body. “You made a wise decision."

Clarke glances up and catches Lexa’s gaze. Her eyes are soft, sincere, and Clarke watches as they flick back up toward the top of her head. The corner of Lexa’s mouth twitches with the beginnings of a smile when she whispers, “I see you have made good use of Algor during his recovery.”

Letting out a soft, raspy laugh, Clarke nods. “I think it makes him feel better—the braiding, I mean.”

“Yes.”

They stare at one another as the silence seeps in around them and begins to grow, and this time, Clarke allows it. Tension builds and sparks, arcing between their bodies until she aches with it, until her fingers are itching to touch. She closes her eyes when Lexa beats her to it, slender fingers dusting over the points of her elbows and trailing up toward her shoulders.

"You shouldn't have come here, Lexa,” Clarke whispers, the words thick in her mouth like the truth is simultaneously too much to speak and too much to swallow. “It isn't safe."

Fingers blaze over her collarbones, burning through the material of Clarke’s shirt, and then inch up onto her neck. Lexa’s fingers slip under the neckline and brush over the cord of the necklace Clarke hasn’t taken off since the night of the festival. The ghost of a smile touches her lips.

"I had to come."

Swallowing, Clarke says, "You could have just sent your warriors.” She reaches for Lexa almost timidly, like she is afraid Lexa might disappear if she touches her. Her hands slip over the rough material of Lexa’s armor-encased waist and slide around to brace against her back and pull her even closer. “You know it would have been safer that way."

Lexa’s fingertips brush along the lines of Clarke’s jaw. "I would not send my people where I would not also go myself."

"But the camp is being watched.” Clarke leans into the touch, unable to stop herself. The tension in her body is drawn so tight that she has to resist the urge to allow her spine to bend and bow forward, press her into Lexa’s angles and curves. She digs her fingers into the material of Lexa’s armored top. "You know you're a target."

"As are you," Lexa whispers, dusting over Clarke’s cheekbones and back down to her jaw. Her thumb swipes over Clarke’s bottom lip before resting just below it, and Clarke wonders how many of their words will be lost when they can no longer keep this dwindling space between them. She thinks maybe she doesn’t care. "Yet you are here."

"I'm here because these are my people," Clarke mutters, and Lexa just slightly leans back.

Face softening, her eyes grow deep with her affection, and she reaches up to run one hand over Clarke’s braids. Her voice comes out thick and throaty when she whispers, "You are my people, Clarke."

The words wash over Clarke with surprising force, shaking her to her core. They seep in and flood her system, soaking every inch until Clarke can feel it all rising and pushing up toward her eyes. She isn’t sure when it happened, but a part of her feels like she _is_ one of Lexa’s people now, like she has somehow found her way to the in-between—neither Sky Person nor Grounder but both, and always Lexa’s.

She slides her hands around from Lexa’s back and up over her chest. One hand wraps around a buckled strap of her chest armor and the trembling fingers of the other slip under and into the wave of Lexa’s hair. Clarke pulls to eliminate the remaining space between them, and the breath that shakes free from her lungs is lost against Lexa’s lips.

The kiss is a heady mixture of hard and soft, shallow and deep, like they are somehow still skirting around each other while simultaneously diving in. Lexa cups Clarke’s face like she is something fragile and precious, worthy of a tenderness that is rare in a warrior’s body, and Clarke feels it everywhere. The kiss wraps around her like a warm embrace and beckons her to fall deeper, dive down and burrow in, never come up for air.

Or maybe, Clarke thinks, it is instead like _finally_ coming up for air after far too many days of drowning.

When their lips part, Clarke lets out a soft sigh and leans her forehead against Lexa’s. Their arms settle around each other’s waists, and they do little more than simply stand and breathe one another in. This one moment of connection, of calm, feels like it could consume the world.

"It's hard to sleep without you," she whispers into the quiet and feels Lexa nod against her forehead.

"Yes."

Heat pools in her cheeks as Clarke licks her lips and says, "I've been sleeping with my mom."

Lexa's lips pull with the hint of a smile, and for a moment it is as if she will simply let the words stand, but then Lexa’s quiet confession puffs against Clarke’s cheeks and chin. "I will admit I brought your furs to my bed. They still have your scent."

Clarke feels like she is floating, like suddenly the ground has shifted and tossed her free, and gravity refuses to pull her back down again. The idea of floating has always terrified her, but this feeling … _this_ isn’t like dying at all. It is something uniquely alive and riveting.

Closing her eyes, she asks, “What are we doing, Lexa?”

Lexa’s arms squeeze around her, tightening like Clarke might slip away any second. Her nose rubs against Clarke’s, a gentle press, and then she whispers, “Something dangerous.”

Clarke knows it is the truth. Whatever this is between them, it isn’t sound. They are two leaders of two vastly different peoples, and both run the risk of someday having to make a terrifying, terrible choice. Clarke isn’t sure how this can work between them, how they can bridge this gap, and she knows it is far too dangerous to bury so many pieces of her heart in a woman she might someday have to sacrifice or who might, again, have to sacrifice her. It is far too dangerous, and yet here they are. Clarke’s fingers are coated in Lexa’s soil, rich with the fresh smell of having planted her pieces, kissing the ground like she is begging them to grow, and she can feel Lexa doing the same. She is full with pieces that are not her own, already nurturing them to sprouting, thriving life.

“Should we stop?” Clarke whispers, and Lexa lets out a shuttering sigh.

“Yes.”

Fingers spread wide against Clarke’s back as Lexa presses her in closer and their bodies fold together like they were made to.

Clarke takes a deep breath. “Do you _want_ to?”

She feels all her pieces bloom in Lexa’s chest when “Never” is whispered against her lips like a prayer.

It is far too late to let go, to prevent the shattering pain of heartbreak should it come. Clarke can only hope they will find a way to make this work, because if they can’t, both she and Lexa will forever be broken—too many pieces of themselves belonging to the other and too many promises pulling them apart.

* * *

“So, you’ve known about this threat and have been carrying this information around for days and didn’t tell us, didn’t tell _me_?” Abby presses her fingertips to her temples. “Clarke, how could you keep this from me?”

“Because I wasn’t sure,” Clarke tells her. “I’m _still_ not sure. I needed to find out what had been going on here in my absence without causing a panic. I thought if I told you or Kane or anyone, it might affect your behavior, make you more suspicious or make you act before we really knew anything. I didn’t want to tip off anyone who might be watching until we were ready.”

“ _Azgeda_ ,” Lexa chimes in, and Abby turns toward her.

“What?”

“The _Azgeda_ ,” Lexa says. “Ice Nation. They are the ones watching.”

Clarke nods. “And until we question Echo, we’re still not even sure that they have been watching the camp. It could be that they have only been watching me.”

“And her,” Abby adds, pointing to Lexa, who gives a short nod.

Abby lets out a sigh, and Kane runs a hand over his hair, shaking his head. “And you think they might be seeking an alliance with us?” he asks Lexa, who gives another nod.

“It is possible,” she says, “or they may be measuring the threat you pose, which is larger now that you have felled the mountain.”

“It doesn’t matter what their aim is,” Clarke cuts in. “We are _not_ allying with them.”

“That isn’t solely your decision to make,” Kane says, and Clarke feels her stomach clench and roll. “It may be the smarter option if they pose a big enough threat.”

“The _Azgeda_ is the largest clan of the coalition,” Lexa tells them, “and very skilled with certain forms of combat, but they do not seek peace.”

“Well then what do they want?” Abby asks. “Revenge for the loss of their generals?”

Indra snorts from behind Lexa, gaining everyone’s attention. “Dominance,” the warrior says, the single word clipped and thick with hatred.

“She speaks true.” Lexa sighs. “Their queen seeks not peace but obedience. She rules her own people with fear and seeks disbandment of the separate clans. She wishes to rule them all as one.”

“Isn’t that what _you_ do?” Kane asks. “Rule all the clans?”

“In a sense, yes,” Lexa tells him. “I oversee every clan and provide for them as I must, but I allow each clan its own place and structure, its own culture and way of life, and its own leaders. They report to me and uphold the terms of the coalition but operate as their own nations. I do not wish to mold them. I do not wish to force them from their homes and cultures and into a single way of life.”

“What do you mean ‘she rules her own people with fear’?” Clarke asks, and Lexa reaches toward the scrap of blue cloth in the middle of the table, the flag Clarke sent to her. She taps the symbol in the center, an eye with a pick or maybe a thin sword stabbing through it.

“The piercing eye,” Indra says from behind Lexa. It sounds like more of a growl than a statement, and Clarke wonders if Indra has ever lost anyone to the _Azgeda_ queen as Lexa has, or if, perhaps, the loss of Costia affected her as well.

“The eye is how she ensures obedience from her people,” Lexa informs them. “The _Azgeda_ believe their queen can see all among her people. It is a belief she instilled in them and one she perpetuates. Her people believe she has the ability to read their thoughts, see them even when they are not physically in her presence. She must only focus on a particular person to do this.” She taps the symbol on the flag again. “The eye represents this belief. The pick is to show how her eye pierces the soul. They have seen the cruelty she is capable of if betrayed or defied or if one stands in the way of what she wants. She takes pleasure in it.”

A chill shoots down Clarke’s spine when she hears her mother whisper, “In torture?”

Lexa gives one slow nod. “They fear the eye.”

“Even more than they fear you?” Clarke asks.

“Many, yes.” Lexa sighs again. “She has convinced a great number of her people that she is the rightful _Heda_ of the clans. She and the _Azgeda_ remain just within the bounds of loyalty. They do not openly commit treason and they abide by the terms of the coalition. Within _Azgeda_ walls, however, she teaches them to idolize her and to consider me a false god.”

“So, they aren’t loyal to you?”

Indra lets out a short, rough laugh, and Lexa smirks. “I am sure they would be were they to stand before me,” she says, “though only in words. Perhaps they would be loyal were they not afraid of their queen, but it is impossible to know while she lives and reigns.”

Clarke swallows thickly and shakes her head. She tries not to think of Lexa’s haunted voice as she stood at the pyre and spoke of Costia, tries not to imagine the twisted pleasure the _Azgeda_ queen must have taken in torturing Lexa’s love. She tries not to imagine the pleasure such a monster would feel if given the chance to do so again. Her words come out strained and strangled when she mutters, “She sounds like a nightmare.”

“She is a powerful leader,” Lexa says, “but an unjust and cruel one.” Her green eyes slide from Clarke to Abby. “Your people think our ways are harsh, but they have seen nothing of _true_ cruelty, and I assure you she will show them if given opportunity.”

Kane and Abby look to one another, and Clarke holds her breath. They seem to be deliberating with only their eyes, and then Abby turns toward them again. “We are not ready to agree to another alliance with your people,” she says, “and we aren’t sure yet if we can trust you, but for the time being, we will trust Clarke.”

Breath releasing in a quiet sigh of relief, Clarke deflates a bit in her seat and nods. “Thank you.”

“So,” Kane says, leaning forward on the table, “where do we begin?”

Clarke glances to Lexa who gives her a firm nod, and her heart begins to race as she says, “First, we talk to Echo.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the short wait, friends, as I took a small vacation with family. Thank you all for your continued support of this story. I appreciate it more than I can say. I wrote this chapter to Lorde's cover of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". I hope you all enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

Every step seems to echo, like bullets ricocheting off the metal floor and walls of the Ark’s tunnels. Each pounding press of foot to floor vibrates up the lengths of Clarke’s legs and drums against her ribs, throbs in her ears like a heavy pulse. Her stomach twists, clenches violently against the daunting absence of other sound as no one speaks, no one seems even to breathe, with every step they take toward the stockade.

Two guards lead the way, and Clarke trails behind them like she is being led to her own imprisonment. Her throat is tight and dry, and she can feel the hairs on the back of her neck prickling and standing at attention. Her palms feel clammy as she clenches her hands into fists, and tries to find comfort in the solid form of Lexa beside her—power and confidence wafting off of the Commander in assuring waves.

It is Bellamy’s deafening silence seeping through from behind them that sticks roughly in Clarke’s throat, pricks at her skin through her clothes, and knots in her stomach until she feels on the verge of vomiting. He insisted on being present for the interrogation, and Clarke is struggling to swallow the reality of what might happen inside that room, the utter destruction a confession of betrayal could wreak inside Bellamy’s soul.

She still remembers the way Lexa’s confession at the mountain felt against her ears and between her ribs. This, she thinks, would be far worse—to learn that such a betrayal was not a last-minute decision but something that had perhaps been brewing since the beginning, to have to question every interaction, every connection, every _word_. The mere thought burns in her chest like acid, makes her stomach turn and turn.

Clarke fears for her people as well, for their safety and the security of their camp. If Echo _was_ sent to infiltrate the camp, there is no telling how much information she has passed along to their potential enemies. Any advantages they might have had to help them at threat of another war may very well now be dead in the water.

She can only hope that for the first time in her life, that dreadful sinking feeling inside her is wrong.

When they reach the stockade, Indra steps around to the front of the group. She and Lexa share a silent look before Lexa nods for the guards to open the door. They ignore her gesture and instead look to Clarke, who fights the urge to roll her eyes. She nods, and the guards open the door for them to enter.

Lexa stays back and motions for Clarke to enter first, followed by Bellamy. The room is partially encased in shadows from a row of lights that had cracked in the Ark’s landing. A few others flicker dimly but the rest are solid and bright, still able to function, much like the Ark itself, thanks to the brilliance of Raven and the others.

Clarke blinks to let her eyes adjust as Bellamy crosses quickly to the woman squatted on the floor and pressed against the far wall. He drops down in front of Echo and his hand twitches atop his knee like he wants to reach out, but he doesn’t. Clarke can’t quite make out whatever it is that Bellamy whispers, but when she sees Echo clench her jaw and turn her head away like she can’t stand the sight of him, it only makes the dread inside bubble and rise higher. Bellamy tries again, but when he receives the same reaction, he gives up and stands to face Clarke. His gaze feels like a wedge driving roughly between them, forcing distance where there once was cohesion.

Indra sweeps into the room behind them like a storm, ominous and powerful. Her long cloak whips out behind her as she braces gloved fingers around the handle of the sword hanging from her hip. Her dark eyes narrow into thin slits as she steps forward and then paces a long arc in front of Echo. A quiet tutting sound snaps between her teeth like fingernails tapping against the top of a desk, and Indra shakes her head back and forth to the rhythm of it.

“ _Natrona_ ,” she hisses, drawing the word out like a sword being drawn from a sheath. Clarke knows the word— _traitor_. She has heard it aimed at Lincoln before.It is a weapon in itself, causing Echo’s eyes to flash in the semi-dark of the stockade and her upper lip to pull back just slightly so that she appears as an animal baring its teeth and on the brink of attack.

Bellamy steps partially in front of her, his hands tightening into fists at his sides. “Back off,” he says, but Indra merely huffs at him and keeps her eyes locked on Echo.

“Do you deny it?” Lexa asks, her voice quiet but commanding as she steps into the room.

Clarke watches as Echo’s eyes widen. The Grounder gathers herself quickly, though, and turns her head away much as she had done with Bellamy to focus again on the wall.

“Deny what?” Bellamy asks. He looks at Indra. “What did you say to her?”

“She called her a traitor,” Clarke tells him, and as soon as the words are out, Bellamy stares at her before letting out a mocking laugh and shaking his head.

“That’s rich coming from you,” he says, tilting his head as he turns toward Lexa, and Clarke knows it is his anger talking. She can already see it coursing through his tightening muscles, making his neck taut and strained and his eyes hard.

“Bellamy,” Clarke says quietly, “you need to let them talk.”

“That’s not talking, Clarke,” he snaps. “That’s accusing, and I—”

Clarke lets out a hard sigh and cuts him off by grabbing his arm and pulling him over to the side of the room. She lowers her voice to a whisper when she says, “Look, I hate that this has to happen, but it does, and I said you could be in here because I can tell Echo is important to you, but if you’re going to interfere the entire time, then you can’t be here.”

“I’m _not_ leaving,” he hisses under his breath, and Clarke’s stomach churns but she stands her ground.

“We need to find out what she knows,” she says, “and we can’t do that if you’re standing in front of her like a statue and cutting in at every word to argue. We haven’t even been in here five minutes and you already look like you want to kill somebody.”

“So we’re just supposed to let them come in here and start harassing her?” Bellamy counters, arching a brow. “You’re fine with that?”

“I’m fine with them talking to one of _their own people_ in their own way,” Clarke clarifies, and she can hear Lexa quietly addressing Echo but can’t quite make out what is being said. “I’m obviously not going to let anyone hurt her, Bellamy, but Echo isn’t one of us. She is one of Lexa’s people, so I’m going to let Lexa take the lead on this, and you need to be okay with that or you need to leave.”

Bellamy works his jaw back and forth before darkly saying, “The last time I checked, Clarke, I don’t take orders from you.”

A white-hot flash of anger sparks in Clarke’s chest as the words hit her like a slap to the face. It isn’t the first time Bellamy has said something of this nature, and Clarke has to remind herself that he is right. She isn’t his boss or his commander. She isn’t _anyone’s_ commander.

That never seems to stop anyone from expecting her to lead, though, or from tearing her down when her choices don’t line up with what each individual person wants or needs. That never seems to stop anyone from looking to her for answers she can only ever hope to have.

Clarke breathes in through her nose, slow and deep, and then quietly says, “The last time _I_ checked, _your_ method of questioning was a lot harsher than an insult.”

She thinks of Lincoln, strung up like an animal and made to endure beating after beating, and she sees Bellamy reel back. He blinks hard, obviously caught off guard by the words.

“And I know,” Clarke says, sighing. “I know I was a part of that, too. It isn’t all on you. It’s on both of us, but my point is that you keep acting like Lexa and her people are so savage, but you heard her at the gate. She was right. Look at _us,_ Bellamy. Look at the way we’ve handled things from the beginning. Why are you, why is _everyone_ , so quick to let us off the hook but not them?”

Bellamy stares at her for a long moment before dropping his gaze and letting out a quiet sigh. “Fine,” he says, voice gruff and weary, “but no one touches her.”

Clarke nods. “Agreed.”

When they step back over to the others, Indra’s expression is a perfect picture of annoyance but Lexa merely continues to stare at Echo.

“Has she said anything?” Clarke asks, and Lexa gives a short shake of her head.

“ _Disha natrona_ doesn’t speak,” Indra snaps, her grip tightening around the handle of her sword. “She defies _Heda._ ”

Lexa holds up her hand for Indra to quiet, and then she takes a step toward Echo. Bellamy starts to step forward as well, but Clarke places a hand on his arm to stop him as Lexa moves again until she is towering over the shackled Grounder.

“What is your purpose here?” Lexa asks, and Clarke wonders how many times she has posed the question. The hard edge in Lexa’s voice makes her think once too many.

Echo only glances at Lexa before turning away again.

“Just tell them,” Bellamy implores, pushing against Clarke’s hand a bit. There is a subtle desperation to his voice that Clarke recognizes all too clearly, and it tears at every part of her. “Tell them you haven’t done anything.”

Clarke feels her heart sink into her stomach and burn when Echo doesn’t acknowledge the words. Instead, her eyes remain fixed on the wall and her lips remain sealed.

* * *

“She wouldn’t say _anything_?” Abby asks as she walks with Clarke toward the medical bay, Lexa and Indra following behind them.

“Nothing.” Clarke shakes her head, running a hand over her braids and scratching at the back of her neck. “We all tried asking her, even Bellamy, but she just stared at the wall and refused to answer.”

“Do you think that means she’s guilty of something?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke says. “I think she definitely knows something about whatever is going on, but what that something _is_ , I’m not sure. I guess we will just have to keep trying.”

Abby nods as they round into the medical bay, and Indra posts up at the door while Clarke and Lexa are led back to the recovery area. Algor is sitting up on his cot, eating. He glances up when they enter and immediately snaps to attention at the sight of his Commander, setting his food aside to try to push himself up off the cot.

“Not so fast,” Abby chuckles, stepping over and gently pressing her hand to his shoulder. “Let me look you over first.”

Algor huffs but settles back down and lets Abby check his wound before redressing it and taking down his vitals. One she is finished, she gives Clarke a nod and moves to leave so that the Commander can have a moment with her warrior.

Lexa clears her throat just before Abby exits, and says, “You are a true healer.”

Abby stops in the doorway, and Lexa turns to face her. Clarke feels her chest expand and bloom with affection when Lexa gently dips her head in Abby’s direction and says, “You have my gratitude, Abby of the Sky People.”

Clarke smiles softly at her mother whose own lips pull up just slightly at the corners. Abby then nods to Lexa and quietly says, “You’re welcome,” before leaving the room.

When Lexa and Clarke turn back to Algor, he is trying once again to stand. Clarke quickly crosses to help him, grabbing the arm that naturally reaches for her after days of her help and company, and assists him in getting off the bed. Once he is up, Algor stands as tall as he can and bows his head to Lexa, who approaches him slowly and reaches for his hand.

Algor lets go of Clarke to brace his hand around Lexa’s forearm. They hold each other’s arms for a long moment in silence as Lexa looks him over and then she surprises Clarke by quietly murmuring, “ _Mochof, Algor_.”

Her voice is softer than Clarke has ever heard it before when directed at anyone other than herself, and there is such sincerity in her eyes that the sight makes Clarke’s chest feel tight and full until she feels like she is intruding on a private moment. So, she quietly slips away, lingers in the corner of the room so as not to be intrusive, and waits for Lexa to have her time with Algor.

It is a few moments before Clarke turns at the sound of her name and finds Lexa standing just behind her. Algor is back on his cot and has returned to his food, so Clarke quietly clears her throat and asks, “What were you thanking him for?”

Lexa stares at her for a long, silent moment, and Clarke thinks she isn’t going to answer, but then the Commander lowers her voice to a soft murmur and says, “For protecting you.”

* * *

Once they leave the medical bay, Lexa orders Indra to return to the other warriors waiting outside the Ark, and then she and Clarke slip away toward the stockade again on their own.

“Do you think she will talk to us?” Clarke asks. “She wouldn’t say a word earlier.”

“That is our way,” Lexa tells her. “Most who capture know nothing of leniency, and promises made in exchange for information are rarely ever upheld. Captives die even when they cooperate, thus we are taught at a young age to hold our silence if ever captured by an enemy. If we die for our silence, at least we know we have served our people by holding our tongues. It is considered an honorable death.”

Clarke thinks of Lincoln, of the way he held his silence no matter the violence he endured at their hands, and then she thinks of Costia. She thinks of how brave she was, tortured for a silence that likely saved Lexa’s life. Her heart aches in her chest at the thought, and though Clarke knows very little of Costia, she can’t help but feel an immense amount of respect for her and for the way she must have loved Lexa.

“Then how are we ever going to get her to talk?” Clarke asks, blinking away the stinging sensation in her eyes.

“There are ways.”

“I’m not going to hurt her, Lexa,” Clarke says, shaking her head, “and I’m not going to let anyone else hurt her either.”

Lexa lets a small smile touch her lips before she says, “Trust me, Clarke,” and Clarke does so without another word.

When they reach the stockade, Clarke sees a guard carrying a tray of food toward the door. She snaps her fingers to get his attention and then motions for him to pass her the tray.

Echo looks up when they enter the stockade and she instantly begins to stiffen.

Clarke slowly approaches her with the plate of food. “You should eat,” she says, setting the tray on the floor in front of her. “I’m sure you’re hungry.”

The plate receives only a disgusted glance, and Echo doesn’t once reach for it.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Clarke tries, softening her voice and hoping that she sounds as sincere as she is, “so you don’t have to be afraid.”

“I am _not_ afraid of you,” Echo snaps, taking Clarke by surprise.

She nods her head quickly. “Okay, well at least you’re talking now. Why wouldn’t you say anything earlier?”

“Because of those present,” Lexa says, stepping forward, and Echo’s jaw clenches tightly.

“Those present?” Clarke asks, looking to the Commander, and then it hits her. “Bellamy?” She turns back to Echo. “Were you afraid to admit anything in front of him?”

Lexa takes another step toward Echo. “You do not wish him to know of your guilt.”

“You are not like the others,” Echo says, ignoring Lexa’s words. Her gaze fixes on Clarke as if she is the only one in the room, as if she is trying to dig beneath the surface.

“What do you mean?” Clarke asks. “How am I different?”

Echo tilts her head to the side before letting out a hiss of a sigh and readjusting her wrists in the shackles. “Not so eager to trust.”

“I think some of the people here might disagree with you,” Clarke tells her, stomach churning. “My trust has gotten us betrayed before.” She doesn’t look at Lexa as the words thicken the air in the room.

“You learned,” Echo says, pursing her lips.

“How do you know?”

“Always listening,” the Grounder says. “Always watching me.”

“You knew I was watching you?”

Echo lets out a loud bark of laughter at that. It rings in Clarke’s ears and leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. “You are no hunter, Sky Girl,” she says. “You show your intention in your face and body, make yourself obvious. You hunt like you are not hungry.” She picks at the cloth of her pants with her shackled hands, balls up a loose thread between her fingers. “I knew, yes.”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke tells her. “I know Bellamy trusts you, but I have to protect my people.”

“You are no hunter,” Echo says again, glancing to Lexa and then back to Clarke, “but you are smart.”

The words make Clarke’s stomach bottom out, and her mouth goes dry. “What do you mean?”

“These people,” she hisses, shaking her head, “like children lost in the wood—desperate and loud, too trusting.” Her eyes are cold, as hard as the floor beneath her and the wall pressing into her back. She licks across her teeth and bites out her next word. “Foolish.”

“It is _foolish_ ,” Lexa says, voice low and chilling as she cuts in, “to cross one who is stronger than you.” She steps forward until she is pushing into Echo’s space. Her hand snaps out so quickly that Clarke feels like she could have blinked and missed it, and then Lexa is pulling Echo to her feet by the front of her cloak. Clarke fights the instinct to interfere and chooses, instead, to trust that Lexa will stand by her word. “Your purpose here is to gain information for your _kwin_ , yes? To seek an alliance with _skaikru_ and unite a force against _me_. Tell me I am wrong, traitor.”

When the shackled woman bares her teeth and says, “You can prove nothing,” Lexa only lets out a cold, quiet laugh before releasing her.

"The _Azgeda_ army left after the war,” she says, and Clarke’s brows furrow. She hasn’t got a clue where Lexa is going with this, but she doesn’t say anything. “Not even one remained to assist in relief.”

Echo licks her lips and casts her eyes toward the wall again as she sinks back into a crouch. “It is a long journey.”

“Much too long to make twice,” the Commander says with a stiff nod.

“Lexa,” Clarke mutters, arching a brow at her, but Lexa merely continues to stare Echo down.

“All those captured by the _maunon_ were stripped of their clothing,” she says, and when Echo stiffens, everything begins to sink in for Clarke. Her eyes flicker to the fur-lined garment still draped over Echo’s shoulders and secured at her neck. All the Grounders inside the mountain had been in nothing but scraps of underwear. She can still remember their fragile, mostly naked forms stumbling through the small gap of the open door. “Yet you wear the cloak of the _Azgeda_.”

The realization has Clarke’s pulse thundering beneath her skin. She swallows thickly before quietly saying, “You wouldn’t have had time to travel all the way back to the Ice Nation to get new clothes and then come back here, and there were no Ice Nation warriors at the relief camp to give you an extra cloak.”

Echo’s eyes dart back and forth between Lexa and Clarke, hard and wild, and the confidence that she holds in the rigid clench of her jaw rapidly begins to deteriorate. Her face slackens with every word.

“But there are rogue warriors in the woods,” Clarke continues, and she is surprised when Echo’s eyes deepen, change quickly from hard to desperate. “So, maybe you want to start talking? Tell us what you know?”

Lexa steps into the space beside Clarke and slowly draws her sword, and though Clarke knows it is only an intimidation tactic, the sight still makes her throat go dry. “Or suffer the consequences,” Lexa says, and the cold edge of her voice is a dark promise that sends a visible shiver down Echo’s spine.

The air in the room thickens until Clarke feels like she can’t breathe, and she can hardly stand still. Every part of her is itching with the tension. But then Echo lets out a nearly inaudible sigh and whispers, “I cannot speak.” Her eyes dart around the room like she expects someone to spring from the shadows, and it only makes Clarke more uneasy.

“She is watching.”

* * *

Clarke’s heart is racing and her cheeks are hot with the anger coursing through her system. “No, absolutely _not_ ,” she snaps as she chases after her mother, both of them disappearing into the Ark.

“It’s already done, Clarke,” Abby says. “I’m sorry, but we took a vote and this is what we’ve decided.”

“ _Who_ took a vote?” Clarke challenges. “You and Kane?”

“And Bellamy,” Abby tells her, and Clarke seethes. She had been confused when she and Lexa finally emerged from their interrogation of Echo to discover Lexa’s warriors setting up their tents and camp on the outside of the Ark’s protective fence. Abby brazenly informed Lexa that she and her people would have to sleep outside of Camp Jaha if they intended to stay, and though Lexa responded with nothing more than a mere nod before heading for the gate, Clarke had nearly burst into flame with fury.  

“Why wasn’t I included in this?” Clarke marches after her mother, hot on her heels. “I told you that it isn’t safe for them to be outside the fence!”

“These people are warriors,” Abby says, “and it is only for the night. Everything will be fine. They can set their tents up just outside the fence, and they will be allowed back inside in the morning once everyone is awake.”

“So, what I think … no, actually what I _know,_ doesn’t matter?” Clarke snaps, and Abby stops in the middle of the hallway to face her. “We just interrogated Echo again, and I was right. We _are_ being watched, and Lexa is a target. It isn’t safe for her to be outside the fence.”

“She knew she was a target before she ever even arrived, so she knew the risk she was taking in coming here,” Abby argues, and Clarke reels back.

“Are you even hearing yourself right now?”

“I have to put _our_ people first,” Abby says, “and you may not like the way I do that, but you’re just going to have to deal with it, Clarke.”

“But Mom, the—”

Clarke nearly bites through her tongue in anger when her mother holds up a hand to stop her from arguing. “I know you think you’re in charge, Clarke, and you might actually _be_ in charge most of the time, but I’m still the Chancellor of the Ark, and the decision is made.”

* * *

The evening air bites at Clarke’s skin as she stands near the Ark and stares bitterly out toward the fence, watching the Grounder warriors finish setting up their tents. She is surprised when Octavia steps into the space beside her and silently holds out a small cup of Monty’s moonshine. She arches an eyebrow but Octavia only shrugs a shoulder before staring out ahead of them, so Clarke takes the cup and brings it to her lips. As soon as the liquid passes into her mouth, though, Octavia clears her throat, nods her head toward the fence, and says, “You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?”

Clarke chokes mid-drink, causing the alcohol to simultaneously shoot up into her nose and flood down her throat. She nearly drops the cup in her hand as she splutters and pinches her fingers around her nose, the damned thing burning like fire.

“What?” The word is half speech, half cough. She clears her throat and tries again. “ _What?_ ”

Octavia snorts and shakes her head. “I thought so.”

Once the burning stops, Clarke clears her throat again and shakes her head. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Why are you avoiding answering?” Octavia counters, crossing her arms over her chest.

“We aren’t _sleeping_ together,” Clarke hisses quietly, glancing around them to make sure no one is within hearing distance. When Octavia arches a challenging brow, Clarke lets out a hard huff of breath and says, “Okay, we _were_ sleeping together in Polis but _literally_ just sleeping.”

“But you’re in a relationship with her,” Octavia says, and it isn’t a question.

Clarke chews on her bottom lip as she stares out toward the fence and the people setting up camp just outside it. She can’t see Lexa, but her gaze continues to dart toward the largest of the tents where she knows the Commander to be, drawn to the other girl like a magnet. Her stomach flips and stirs at the thought of being in a relationship with Lexa. “I don’t know,” she whispers honestly. “Maybe.”

She expects an explosion, an accusation, a lecture, but there is nothing but silence between them for a long time, and when Octavia finally does speak, she says only a single word. “Okay.”

Shocked, Clarke turns toward her. “ _Okay_?” she asks. “Really? That’s all? You’re not going to give me a lecture about how she betrayed our people?”

Octavia is all hard lines and soft eyes when she gives a small shake of her head. “I would have,” she admits, “ _before_.”

“Before what?” Clarke asks, and Octavia further tightens her arms over her chest.

“When I went to Polis and requested to speak to the Commander on your behalf,” she says, “I was barely inside the gate before she found me and pulled me into the nearest building.”

Clarke turns toward her at those words.

“‘What do you know of Clarke?’” Octavia does her best to imitate Lexa’s voice and rigid spine, and Clarke can’t help the smile that tugs at her lips and at her heart at the production. It is surprisingly accurate. “She was scared. I don’t think she even realized … but I could tell. I’ve seen that same look on Bellamy’s face a thousand times, every time he thought I was hurt or even just sad. I’ve seen it on Lincoln’s face too, the same way he looked at me when he realized I was poisoned.” Octavia turns to face Clarke then. “I thought she didn’t care about anyone but herself, _her_ people,” she says, “but she cares about you, Clarke, the way you care about someone you really _love_.”

Clarke’s throat is too tight to allow her words to cleanly pass, so they croak through like her voice is on the verge of disappearing when she asks, “And that changes things for you? Even after Mount Weather?”

“It does if you feel the same way,” Octavia tells her, shifting on her feet. She glances to the Ark and then to the ground, and when she finally looks back up at Clarke, her eyes are glossy. “Lincoln told me he chose the reaper drug over my brother, chose to let Cage’s people shoot him up with Red again instead of sticking to the plan they had to get into Mount Weather.”

She swiftly wipes away the only tear that manages to fall before turning to face forward again. “People do fucked up things sometimes,” she says, and she shrugs a shoulder before glancing back to Clarke. “We love them anyway.”

The words ring in Clarke’s ears long after Octavia walks away.

* * *

Clarke doesn’t crawl into her mother’s bed when she retires for the night, but instead slips into her own. She lies in the quiet room, staring up into the dark, and she can’t stop worrying about Lexa. She hates the way the silence seems almost tangible, pressing into her like a scratchy blanket that serves no purpose but to irritate and allows her mind to wander with morbid possibilities. So, it is almost a blessing when her mother’s voice breaks through the frustrating calm.

_Almost_. Clarke is still furious with her.

“I know you’re angry,” Abby says from across the room.

“Wow,” Clarke drawls. “Nothing gets by you, Mom.”

She hears her mother’s long sigh. “You aren’t the only one who makes decisions for the people here, Clarke, and you can’t expect everyone to always agree with you. We do the best we can with what we have and what we know, and what we _know_ is that the Commander betrayed us. You may have found a way to trust her again, but the rest of us need time.”

Clarke shoves her blanket off and slides her legs off the side of her bed. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, Mom,” she says as she reaches for the pile of clothes she left on the floor, “but we don’t always _have_ time.” She does her best to pull each article of clothing on properly in the dark before yanking on her boots.

“Clarke?”

She can hear Abby sitting up in her bed, the sheets rustling around her, and Clarke stands and makes her way over to the door.

“Where are you going?”

Clarke leans against the closed door. She licks her lips and shakes her head in the dark. “I left here because I needed time, and I just barely started to feel like I could breathe again before I had to come back here and deal with this. It wasn’t enough time. Sometimes it feels like there won’t _ever_ be enough time, but I just have to deal with that. You’re going to have to learn to deal with it too.”

She starts to leave but turns back just before stepping out. “Oh, and you may think you can’t trust Lexa right now, but you should know that she’s the reason I’m standing here and not rotting in the woods somewhere.” Her eyes burn with tears when she sighs into the dark and says, “I didn’t even realize how much I hated myself, how much I wanted to lie down out there and die, until she made me feel like being alive again.”

Her mother’s sharp intake of breath is quickly muted when Clarke slips out the door and pulls it closed behind her.

* * *

The night is cold and windy, biting through Clarke’s clothes the moment she steps from the Ark. She wraps her arms tightly around her middle to warm herself but the chill is relentless and has her shivering in seconds. Clarke glances quickly around before making her way toward the fence. She is halfway there when a flicker of light between the trees just beyond Lexa’s small camp catches her eye.

Clarke quickly darts into one of the darker, fuller shadows nearby and squints to see better as she stares toward the orange glow between the trees. Is it a torch? Has Lexa sent one of her warriors out to patrol? A second later, another flickering light springs to life near the first, and then another on its other side, and then another just behind it, and Clarke’s heart slams against her ribs at the same time her stomach flips and drops.

Before she can even manage to suck in a breath to shout, the flickering lights she has determined to be flames all soar into the sky, arcing high, before speeding back down toward the tents standing just outside the fence.

The sounds of shattering glass and canvas bursting into flame ring in Clarke’s ears like a death knell.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the incredible support! I appreciate it more than I can say, and I am so glad to see so many people sticking with and loving this story. I loved writing this chapter so much, so I can only hope you all enjoy it as well. I wrote this chapter to to Marilyn Manson's cover of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)". The next chapter is a direct continuation of this one. Enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

The frigid air whips into a wind around her. It screams against her ears but seems almost quiet compared to the hammering beat of her pulse pounding inside her head with every driving step. Clarke runs as hard as her body will allow, as fast as her legs will carry her. It takes only steps for her breath to grow sharp in her lungs like pricking needles, but she doesn’t let up. The nearer she draws to the rapidly spreading fire, the more her eyes begin to sting from the billowing smoke quickly polluting the night air, but Clarke doesn’t dare close them for even a second of relief.

She hears shouts from behind her just as she reaches the fence, people beginning to spill out of the Ark and the surrounding makeshift structures. There are two people, hardly older than Clarke, standing guard at the fence, and both seem to be frozen at the sight on the other side. Their hands grip tightly around their guns but they don’t move. They only stare.

Clarke slams into the gate, fingers latching around the twisted metal and tugging. “Help me!” she shouts, urging the other two to assist but they remain frozen until Clarke grabs one of them by the collar of his shirt and jerks him toward her. Their faces are only inches apart when she growls, “Hey! There are people in those tents! Do you want to be responsible for them dying when they can still be saved? Help me open this damned gate!”

The guy stutters wordlessly as he nods, and he and the other boy on guard make quick but messy work of unlatching the gate and jerking it open.

The gap is only about a foot wide when Clarke squeezes through it and races toward the blazing tents. The smallest of the three has deflated entirely, having caved in with one blow, and burns like it has been doused in fuel. Clarke’s stomach lurches as she thinks of the person inside. It is most likely too late for them. The next tent is still standing and has only just caught fire. Clarke races toward it, but when she glances inside, she sees only the lump of a blanket on an empty cot and a lantern, still lit, casting shadows against the canvas as it begins to burn. The largest tent, the one Clarke knows to be Lexa’s is already partially caved in, the backside of the structure fully ablaze. It is a bright, hot ball of heat as thick as the lump in Clarke’s throat.

The entrance to Lexa’s tent is still visible, still reachable, and Clarke doesn’t think twice before running straight for it. The heat is overwhelming, pushing against her like a warning as she draws nearer, but all Clarke can think is that Lexa is still inside. Lexa is trapped. Lexa is burning, dying, dead.

Clarke pulls back the tent flap, and a wave of heat and smoke billows out. It slams into her with a force hard enough to push the oxygen right out of her lungs, and her face and body quickly coat with a sheen of sweat that she can already feel soaking through her clothes. She turns her head, coughing, and tries to suck in a long, deep breath of air before darting inside to find the Commander.

Before she can disappear into the inferno, though, she feels a hand wrap around her arm and jerk her roughly back. Clarke stumbles backward to see Bellamy, wide-eyed and clutching onto her.

“Are you insane?” he shouts over the loud, crackling pops of the blaze. “Clarke, you can’t go in there!”

“I have to,” Clarke snaps, tugging at her arm. “Let me go.”

“No,” Bellamy says, shaking his head and holding tighter to her arm like he is afraid she will float away or burst into flame the moment he lets go.

“Lexa could still be alive in there,” Clarke shouts at him. “She could be trapped!”

“That tent is going to collapse any second,” Bellamy yells. “If you go in there, Clarke, you’ll die!”

Clarke pushes her hand against his chest in a hard shove and rips her arm from his grip. Her words are pure bite when she holds his gaze and says, “Then that will be on you,” before running into the tent.

The heat is brutal when she ducks inside, oppressive, and it takes only seconds for her to feel like she is dying, like she can’t get enough air into her lungs.

“Lexa!” Clarke shouts, coughing as she sucks in a mouthful of polluted air. It burns in her throat and clogs up her airway. Still, she forces herself forward.

A haze fills the space of the tent making the air seem almost alive and dancing, and Clarke’s eyes sting like they will never stop. She waves her hands through the streams of gray smoke to try to see better, but it only separates and collects again to cloud the air. Hard, heavy coughs wrench up from her throat as she moves through the tent, and from what little Clarke can see, there is thankfully very little in the tent. The Grounders obviously traveled light and perhaps didn’t intend on staying long, but Clarke can just make out the end of a cot in the back corner of the room. It is sticking out from beneath the collapsed portion of the tent, and Clarke’s stomach clenches violently at the sight. Bile shoots up her throat but she chokes it back down.

She tries to get closer, but the entire back portion of the tent is devoured in flame, and the heat pushes her back, warns her away. She can’t get close enough. She can’t do anything, and Clarke feels the weight of that in every cell of her body. It haunts her even before it has a chance to settle in, just like the lever, just like Finn.

Clarke’s chest is so tight that it feels like it might cave in at any moment, like her ribs might just crumble around the clenching organ until there is nothing left but dust. She presses her hand to her chest and tries to suck in sharp breaths, but she can’t get the air she needs. The fire is rapidly devouring the oxygen, and there is nothing left for her to breathe. She stumbles backward and out of the tent, manages to get a few feet away before she collapses to her knees.

Bracing her hands on the ground, Clarke gasps for clean air and coughs so hard that her throat feels like it is shredding. Her eyes are burning and her cheeks are wet, droplets slipping off the tip of her nose and smacking into her hands below, and Clarke isn’t sure if they are the result of crying or sweating, but she thinks maybe they are both.

“Clarke!”

Bellamy is at her side a moment later, Octavia and Lincoln right behind him. He drops to the ground beside her as the other two hover over them, swords drawn and at the ready.

“Breathe,” Bellamy says, and Clarke is stricken with the conflict of being both relieved and furious. She wants to embrace him at the same time that she wants to shove him away and tell him that this, all of this, is his fault.

“Did you find her?” Octavia asks, and Clarke closes her stinging eyes at the question.

The words stab at her insides until every inch of her is as coated with her anger as with her sweat. She feels the tears rush up and squeeze over, and the next cough that tears from her throat is more of a sob than anything as she pushes back, pushes Bellamy away, and shakes with the feeling coursing through her.

Bellamy’s face goes slack at her rejection. The haunt in his eyes glows bright in the firelight, and Clarke can’t bring herself to pity him. Not here. Not now. Not when Lexa is ….

“Clarke, I—”

“You should have trusted me,” Clarke says, her voice torn and gruff. “You should have … and now ....” She presses her hand to her chest as her words are lost to another sob. “Now it’s too late.”

Shouts ring out around them as Arkers rush to try to contain the fire and dampen it out. Clarke thinks she hears her mother’s voice but she doesn’t care. She feels like she is melting into the ground, cracking and crumbling like the Grounders’ camp around her.

Bellamy clenches his jaw but his lip wobbles as he draws in a shaky breath and shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says, and the words sound like they have to be forced through gritted teeth. The gloss coating his eyes, visible in the glow of the fire, only makes Clarke burn hotter.

“I don’t care that you’re sorry,” she says, and right now, she means it.

“ _Gyon au!_ ” The shout spills from the woods like a battle cry, and Clarke’s head snaps up at the voice. She knows that voice. “ _Frag em op!”_

Clarke is on her feet and sprinting before she can even fully register her own movement, but she isn’t prepared for what she sees when she breaks the tree-line.

Bodies are scattered along the forest floor like play things, sprawled out in crimson pools that shimmer in the orange glow that is able to pierce the face of the woods. She recognizes their clothing, their fur-lined cloaks all partially squashed beneath their bodies but still visible. Three in a row greet her as she stumbles to a stop at their feet, lined up like they were caught off guard. Their throats are each slit ear to ear, all killed from behind, and if Clarke had to guess, she would say their deaths happened simultaneously.  

Lincoln steps into the space beside Clarke, Octavia on her other side, as they stare down at the corpses. “They ambushed them,” Lincoln says, and Clarke turns to him, eyes wide. Her stomach flips at the thought.

“You mean?”

“Indra!” The name, pulled from Octavia’s lips, is like a sigh of relief that somehow manages to echo between the trees. Octavia takes off, and Clarke has to scramble to chase after her. She sees the woman Octavia is after, and it only makes Clarke’s heart beat faster, harder, more desperately. If Indra is alive, then surely, _surely_ …

And Clarke knows what she heard. She knows that voice was Lexa’s. She _knows_ it, and even if it is only her head messing with her, she has to hold onto it. She has to hold onto the hope that Lexa is still alive, because right now, that hope is the only thing that is keeping her on her feet.

Clarke and Lincoln chase after Octavia, and Clarke sees another body on the ground as they do. The light is thinner farther in and she can’t make out the person’s features, so she doesn’t let herself dwell on it. She _can’t_ let herself dwell on it. Doing so will only open the door to things she has been trying desperately to lock away and let go of.

Indra is hot on the heels of another warrior, chasing him down like she is a starved beast and he is her prey, and Clarke realizes that they have joined her in the hunt. Lincoln rips past her, moving over the rough terrain like every inch is embedded in his memory, and he never once falters. Indra looks to him as they sprint after the man, darting around massive trees and over sprawling roots. Clarke sees her give him a nod when Lincoln pulls a hunting knife from his belt, and then he is jolting to a stop. His arm arcs back before he lets the knife go with rippling force.

For only a moment, there is silence but for the crunch of leaves beneath Clarke’s heavy feet as she slows to a stop, and then they hear it. The choked grunt rings out ahead of them, followed by the hard thud of a body hitting the ground.

Lincoln has hit his mark.

Clarke lets out a harsh breath and gasps new air into her lungs. Her chest heaves as she looks around, tries to make out shapes in the dark of the woods. She needs—

Clarke yelps as an arm suddenly sweeps around her middle and jerks her body back hard against an armored chest. The sound barely manages to escape her, drawing the attention of the others, before she feels the cool, sharp press of a blade at her neck. She stills, frozen but for her heart slamming against her ribs.

“Clarke,” Octavia gasps, taking a step forward, but the woman holding Clarke squeezes more tightly around her and presses the blade harder against Clarke’s throat so that it just slightly pierces the skin.

“Ah ah,” the warrior says, and Octavia stills. “Stay back.”

Clarke closes her eyes and sucks in a sharp breath through her nose. Her hand inches onto her hip, only to find nothing there, and Clarke realizes that she left her weapons in her room when she walked out on her mother. She is defenseless. “What do you want?”

“To live,” the warrior hisses, her breath hot against Clarke’s ear, “and to serve my _kwin_.”

“Your _kwin_ will be your death,” Indra snaps, and Clarke feels the blade press harder against her throat. She sucks in a hard breath at the sting but doesn’t struggle. She is surprised, though, when the body pressed against hers suddenly stiffens.

“ _Chil yu daun o wan up,_ ” commands a hard voice from behind them, and Clarke feels a shiver run down her spine. She closes her eyes at the sound and lets out a hard, shuddering breath.

The woman holding her stands as still as possible, and Clarke cannot see behind her but she imagines there must be a weapon to the warrior’s back.

“I will kill her,” the warrior snaps, and Clarke can’t even bring herself to care. Her heart is in her throat, stinging at the edge of the blade, and all she can think about is that voice. Her entire body floods with one simple, relieving, _consuming_ fact.

Lexa is alive.

“You will die for the threat alone,” the Commander growls, and Clarke thinks this cannot possibly end well. Lexa could attack this woman, but Clarke is fairly certain her own throat will be slit in the process. But then the woman holding her suddenly jerks to the side, spinning violently around, and thrusts Clarke toward Lexa. Clarke gasps as she feels the edge of Lexa’s sword slice through the side of her arm before her body slams into Lexa’s, and they stumble backward.

Lexa’s free hand braces around Clarke’s waist as she steadies them, and Clarke barely gets a glimpse of her before the Commander pushes past her and takes off after the warrior with Indra right behind her. Clarke doesn’t stop to fully register the blood now oozing from her arm or the pain accompanying it before she gives chase. Her encounter with Lexa was so brief that she isn’t even entirely sure it was real. She has seen too many ghosts, and she has to know. She has to be certain.

Clarke closes in on the warriors at the edge of the forest just as Indra says, “That was the last of them, _Heda_.”

Clarke sees a flash of red in the firelight, the ripple of a long sash, and her heart stutters, stalls, and then amps up again. She somehow manages to make her legs move even faster, stumbling over the ground but never letting herself fall. She doesn’t let herself think about anything but that red sash and the person it is attached to.

Frazzled braids are visible in the glow, and when the Commander turns, there is a streak of blood down the side of her face, but her body is intact and she is standing and breathing and _alive_.

“Lexa!” Clarke screams the name louder than she intends but her heart is suddenly in her mouth, and she cannot silence it. It demands to be heard. It jumps out of her, a desperate cry, and Clarke can’t bring herself to care or regret it, because this is _real_.

Lexa’s head snaps up at the shout, her green eyes wide and bright even in the shadows, and she barely manages to mouth Clarke’s name before Clarke is barreling into her.

The Commander staggers at the force of Clarke’s sudden embrace, but Clarke doesn’t let go. She wraps around her like this one embrace could save a life, and maybe in way, it can. There is a moment of stiff silence but for the sounds of their panting breaths, but then Lexa’s arms come up. They encircle Clarke’s waist like they were made to, and when Clarke feels Lexa’s familiar hands pressing into her back and ribs, tears flood her eyes and she lets out a sound that catches somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“Breathe, Clarke,” Lexa whispers softly against her ear, and Clarke buries her face in the Commander’s neck, breathes in the smell of sweat and blood and earth. “I am well.”

Clarke takes several deep breaths until her heart slows and calms, and when she reluctantly peels herself from Lexa, she notices the other three present standing awkwardly a short distance away. Octavia wears the knowing hint of a smile, while Lincoln seems to be trying to avoid their gazes, and Indra looks more annoyed than anything. Clarke glances to Lexa to see her giving them all a stare that makes it clear that this is not to be questioned or spoken of again lest they wish to have their flesh peeled from their bones or something equally horrendous.

It is all so overwhelming and surprising yet incredibly familiar that Clarke almost laughs. The sound catches in her throat when she feels Lexa’s fingers on her arm, accompanied by a jab of pain. Glancing down, Clarke sees blood still oozing, though more slowly, from a gash in her bicep.

“Your arm,” Lexa says, but Clarke shakes her head.

“I’m fine.” She clears her throat. “You weren’t in the tents.”

“It was too risky,” Lexa tells her with a nod. “We used lanterns to create shadows. They gave the illusion of our presence inside the tents while we made for the woods.”

“And found the _Azgeda_ ,” Indra growls.

Clarke nods. “You took them by surprise.”

“There were many,” Lexa says, “more than I anticipated. We managed to take down three before the others attacked.” She glances to Indra before briefly bowing her head. “Degan and Bas were killed.” Clarke assumes these are the names of the two other warriors that accompanied them to Camp Jaha, and Clarke seethes over the loss.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “This never should have happened.”

Lexa nods and looks to the body on the ground nearby, the woman who held the knife to Clarke’s throat. “She was the last of the _Azgeda_ we found.”

“They’re all dead?” Octavia asks. “How will we get information?”

Clarke and Lexa look to one another just as Lincoln quietly says, “Echo.”

* * *

It takes hours to get the fire out, and Clarke is forced to separate from Lexa while she and Indra dispose of their dead. She has Lincoln temporarily tie up her wound so that she can help out, but she knows she will need stitches. Clarke is tempted to do them herself, but she knows her mother is the best option. That doesn’t stop her from avoiding the woman like the plague while they put out the fire.

The sky is still dark but lighter like morning is only a few hours away by the time they are finished, and Raven barely takes three steps into the remains of the small camp before declaring that an accelerant was used.

“I mean I’ll need to test some samples to back that up,” she says, shaking her head, “but I’m pretty positive on sight alone.” She points to several different areas where the ground and the remains are scorched black, the color and severity of the damage petering out as they move outward from each point. “See how harsh the damage is in those spots? Those are the starter points, and they were definitely fueled.”

Clarke imagines each of the soaring flames she watched rip through the sky smashing into the ground in each of the blackened spots, and she feels sick to her stomach. Part of her still feels like she is on the ground outside those tents, coughing up the bitter taste of leaving Lexa inside.

She tells Raven what she saw and that she heard shattering glass, and for a moment, Raven only gapes at her, but then she closes her eyes and swallows thickly, and Clarke knows. She _knows_ what that means.

“I thought so,” she says, and Raven nods.

“Clarke, I—” She swipes a hand over her face and down the back of her ponytail. Her bottom lip trembles. “I shouldn’t have—”

Clarke places a hand on her arm. “Hey,” she says. When Raven looks up at her, Clarke squeezes her arm. “This isn’t on you.”

“It kind of is,” Raven rasps, shaking her head. “I think we both know it kind of is.”

Clarke lets out a heavy sigh. “They never should have been outside that fence. They never should have even been outside the Ark, and you’re not responsible for that.” Her gaze wanders to the one person she has been avoiding until now, and Clarke squeezes Raven’s arm again before marching over to her mother.

Abby and Kane are talking to Octavia, who has her arms crossed over her chest and her jaw clenched, and with every step Clarke takes toward them, the fire in her veins grows hotter and wilder. Her adrenaline hasn’t stopped pumping since the attack, and it doesn’t feel like it will stop anytime soon. She is so wired that she is shaking as she says, “I hope you’re happy.”

“Clarke—” Abby tries, turning toward her, but Clarke doesn’t want to hear a word of it.

“Don’t.” Her voice is hard, edged, dangerous.

“Clarke, we couldn’t have known that—”

“I said _don’t_ ,” Clarke bites out loudly, and within seconds, she can feel people’s eyes boring into her from all sides. “Don’t you _dare_ stand there and try to tell me that you couldn’t have known this would happen. You _did_ know. _I_ knew. I _told_ you it wasn’t safe. I told you it wasn’t safe, and now people are dead, and that’s on you. You don’t get to stand there and ask me to make you feel better by saying that this isn’t your fault when it is. I told you what would happen, and I was right, but you were too busy holding a grudge to actually listen to me.”

“It wasn’t just about what happened at Mount Weather,” Kane says, stepping forward and placing a hand on Abby’s shoulder. “I know you’re angry, Clarke, but we put a lot of thought into this decision. If these people really were watching us and there was a chance that they were seeking an alliance, then having the Commander and her people stay outside the fence was the best move. It shows that we haven’t placed full trust again in any one party, and that we are open to new options. That is what we need right now. We need options. We can’t handle another war, and it’s possible that an alliance with this Ice Nation might be our best option.”

Clarke is so angry that she is practically vibrating, and her eyes are burning with tears. Her hands are clenched into fists at her side, her teeth grinding until her jaw hurts. “I told you that we are _not_ allying with them.”

“And as I said before,” Kane counters, “that isn’t solely up to you.” He takes a step around Abby and places a hand on Clarke’s shoulder. She shrugs it away and Kane sighs, steps back again. “We aren’t trying to fight you, Clarke. We just want to do what is best for our people, and right now, we think that is keeping our options open. We tried working with the Commander before, and we all saw how that worked out. You can’t blame us for being cautious.”

“Cautious?” Clarke snaps. “You think you’re being cautious? _You’re_ the reason this happened.”

“We didn’t launch that attack, Clarke,” Abby says, and Clarke seethes.

“You might as well have,” she tells her. “Do you know what they used to start the fire? Molotov cocktails. Want to take a wild guess where they learned how to make those? Where they got the fuel, the supplies?”

Clarke lets out a harsh, cold huff of a laugh. “You let a complete stranger walk in here, no questions asked, and didn’t even bother to monitor her behavior. She has been passing information and supplies to the outside for over a week now, and you never even would have known if I hadn’t come back here, and do you know _why_ I came back?”

Her gaze tracks back and forth between her mother and Kane, every word taking visible effect on them.

“Lexa,” she says. “I’m here because of Lexa, because she asked me to come. Who knows what might have happened if I hadn’t, if this had continued or even escalated? You could all be dead right now. This place could have been wiped out, all your defenses swept right out from under your noses. _Lexa_ is the reason that hasn’t happened. She is the one who caught Echo in a lie, and she could have died because of you.”

Clarke stares her mother down before letting out a hard sigh and shaking her head. “You’re going to get everyone killed.”

“We made the decision together,” Kane says, squeezing Abby’s arm like he trying to shift some of the blame onto himself, shift Clarke’s anger toward him instead of her mother, “as a council.”

“As a council?” Clarke lets out another harsh laugh. “You two and whatever third wheel best suits you in the moment isn’t a council. Wake up. There isn’t any council anymore.” She turns without another word and storms toward the Ark, signaling for Octavia to follow, and she nearly stumbles to a stop when she sees Bellamy standing only a few feet away, gaping. His eyes are glossy and his hands are clenched into fists, and Clarke can only imagine the riot that must be ripping through his system, but she pushes herself to keep walking. She doesn’t have any forgiveness in her to give right now, not yet.

Just before she reaches the Ark, Kane calls out to her again. “We didn’t want anyone to get hurt, Clarke,” he says, and Clarke has to force down the thick lump in her throat before she can speak.

“It doesn’t matter what you wanted,” she croaks, turning back. “People _got_ hurt. People _died_ , and there is no way around that. You think you know what is best for our people, but you don’t. You’re still stuck in space, but we aren’t up there anymore, and down here, there is no council.” She glances to her mother. “There is no Chancellor. The Ark is dead, and if you don’t want to listen to me, to Lexa, to any of us who have been down here, surviving, then you’re only going to ensure that all our people die right along with it.” She can only shake her head as she turns away again.

“Octavia,” Abby calls, almost like a plea, though for what, Clarke doesn't know, and Clarke doesn’t turn back but she hears Octavia shuffle to a stop.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Griffin,” she hears Octavia say, “but the Grounders took me in. They wanted to teach me. They gave me a chance. All the council ever gave me was an impending death sentence just for existing. I’m with Clarke. The Ark is dead.”

* * *

Clarke grits her teeth as Lincoln stitches up the gash on her arm. She glances down at the work when he finishes, and it is rough. It will definitely leave a scar, but Clarke doesn’t care. She can’t stand the thought of being with her mother right now, so she will take what she can get. The wound is clean and closed, and that’s all she needs.

She spends a little extra time washing up before heading out of the medical bay with Lincoln to find Octavia waiting in the hall with Lexa and Indra. Clarke’s eyes instantly lock onto the Commander, take in her freshly washed face, the streak of blood now gone. She soaks in every inch that her gaze can rake over in a matter of seconds and almost doesn’t catch it when Octavia says, “A few people actually gave up their rooms to bunk together, so we have a couple spares.”

Clarke’s throat is dry, too dry to speak, so she just nods and motions for Octavia to lead the way.

Every step is shaky like there are earthquakes beneath her feet, sending vibrations up her legs and into her chest. She feels like she hasn’t stopped shaking since that first spark of flame flickered to life between the trees, and no matter how many times she reminds herself that Lexa is alive, Lexa is fine, Lexa is _right behind her_ , she can’t stop hearing the roar of the flames, can’t stop picturing Lexa inside that tent—injured, trapped, dying, _dead_. The way those images pulse inside her and strip her of voice and stability force all Clarke’s feelings to the surface until they are floating in her throat and in her eyes.

She feels like she is drowning in them, in all the things she hasn’t said or allowed herself to truly _feel_ until now.

When Octavia shows them the first room, Clarke gives her a nod and then stays behind with Lexa while the other two lead Indra to the other available room. She pushes open the door and steps inside, her back to Lexa, and her heart is racing like she just ran a marathon. Her mind flits back and forth between the roaring flames and the feeling of barreling into Lexa’s living, beating body.

“So, this is it,” she says, and her voice trembles around every word like it has to fight to free itself from her tightened throat.

“Thank you.”

The sound of Lexa’s voice pulls a sigh from Clarke’s lips, heavy like it is full with all the things she thinks she might never be able to express. She lets that voice sink into her, _remind_ her, and she knows she should move now, knows she should turn around and leave, let Lexa rest after everything, the attack, the _losses_. She has to be tired, so tired she can likely feel it in her bones, but Clarke can’t move.

Everything inside her feels too loud and too messy, too pulsing, too bright, too dark, too _much_ , and all she can do is stand there, aching, trembling, existing.

“Clarke,” she hears Lexa murmur from behind her, and just the simple sound of her name on Lexa’s tongue is enough to pull tears from her stinging eyes and a strangled sob from her throat. She clenches her eyes closed and wraps her arms around herself as she stands in the middle of the room, her back to Lexa and her heart in her throat, and despite how awful and messy this night has been, something feels like it is finally, _finally_ , falling into place.

And when the warmth of Lexa’s breath suddenly ghosts across the back of Clarke’s neck, when Lexa’s hands timidly settle against Clarke’s waist and make her feel alive in a way nothing ever has, she understands what that something is.

Everything is turbulent and temporary and terrifying and so completely fucked up, but it is the middle of the night, and they are alive, and Clarke is in love with Lexa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Gyon au!" - "Go!"
> 
> "Frag em op!" - "Kill him!"
> 
> "Chil yu daun o wan op." - "Stand down or die."


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is immensely precious to me, so I hope you all enjoy it. I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "The End of All Things" by Panic! At the Disco. Enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

Clarke trembles in the quiet room, her back pressed to Lexa’s strong chest, and Lexa’s fingers braced atop her waist. She can’t seem to make it stop, the quaking in her muscles and bones, like she is crashing, crashing. Her adrenaline is leaking away, and all that is left in its wake is this consuming realization, too loud to ignore, too immense to keep inside. She feels like she is going to burst.

“Breathe, Clarke,” Lexa whispers, just as she had in the woods, just as she has since the beginning. The words puff against the back of Clarke’s neck, hot and soft, and send a shiver down her spine. She nearly buckles around it.

Her words vibrate between her teeth when Clarke draws in a fast breath and says, “I thought…”

“I know,” Lexa breathes, not even needing to hear the completed thought. She squeezes Clarke’s waist, holds her steady, and rubs her thumb over the swell of her hip over and over.

A throat clears from behind them, and they both jolt at the sound. They separate quickly and turn toward the intruder.

Octavia stands in the frame with her hand on the door. A small smirk graces her lips despite the slight pink of her cheeks. She clears her throat again, more pointedly, before saying, “I’ll just, um, go ahead and close this for you, Commander.”

Lexa’s nostrils flare and her jaw clenches, but she only gives a hard nod and says, “Octavia.”

Octavia doesn’t give either of them a chance to say anything more before she closes the door and leaves, and Clarke and Lexa can only stand there, staring, until Clarke lets out a sigh that sounds almost like a laugh. She shakes her head with it and runs a hand over her braided hair and down her face.

“I can go,” she says, but instead of moving toward the door, she heads shakily for the opposite wall. The surface is cool against her forehead as she braces her hands against the wall and collapses inward. “I should go.”

“Clarke.”

“I should,” Clarke says, letting out a staggered breath. “I should go. You need to rest.”

“I am fine,” Lexa says from behind her, and Clarke shakes her head again, her forehead rubbing against the wall with a quiet squeaking sound that makes her cringe.

“You haven’t slept in _days_ , Lexa.”

“I will survive.”

Clarke closes her eyes at those words, feels them sting and stab at her. _Survive_. They barely survived the night. Clarke thinks she has been barely surviving since the day she landed on earth. Maybe she and Lexa are the same in that way, always just barely surviving but surviving nonetheless. She doesn’t know if it is a blessing or a curse. Perhaps both.

“You may stay, Clarke.” Lexa is closer now but not quite close enough to be touching, not quite close enough for Clarke to feel her warmth or her breath, be encased in her shadow.

Clarke stares at the floor, her heart thudding heavily in her chest, and she wants to say yes. She wants to say that, right now, staying here, staying with Lexa, is the only thing that feels right, the only thing that feels _good_. She wants to let go of every ounce of strength in her body, every inch of resistance and all that _survival_ , and just collapse backward into Lexa’s arms. Hold me, she wants to say. Hold me. But instead, Clarke licks her lips and tentatively asks, “Is that what _you_ want?”

She isn’t sure how she expects Lexa to respond, maybe a non-answer or something incredibly vague that leaves the Commander’s actual desires up in the air, because Lexa is so accustomed to pretending she has no desires at all. So, Clarke is taken completely by surprise when Lexa simply says, “Yes.”

That single, small word is enough to reach in and pull all her aching, needing, _wanting_ pieces straight to the surface, and Clarke barely sucks in a breath before she is pushing off the wall and spinning on her heels. She crashes into Lexa, and they stumble backward as Clarke catches the back of Lexa’s neck with an urgent hand and swallows the small gasp on her lips inside a searing kiss.

It is messy and desperate and wet with the tears Clarke didn’t even realize were still washing her cheeks, but it’s the kind of kiss that says a million things in a single press. It’s the kind of kiss that latches on and tugs you in, tugs you _hard,_ tugs you closer, tugs sound from your lips and the ground from beneath your feet. It’s the kind of kiss that demands to be felt, demands to be remembered.

It is a goddamned disaster of a kiss, and Clarke knows it will leave her, leave them both, in ruins, but she wants to crumble in Lexa’s arms. She wants to crumble against her lips. She wants to fall apart over and over until they are only rubble and remains, mixed together like wind-stirred ashes. They should get to choose how they are destroyed, and this, Clarke thinks, _this_ is how she wants to break—on Lexa’s lips.

They fall into the heady explosion, and Clarke is intoxicated by the sudden rush of blood to her hands and between her legs, pulsing, pulsing, and by the thinning oxygen that barely makes it into her lungs with each quick gasp between wet presses. Her hands are at the buckle on Lexa’s chest before she even realizes what she is doing, but she doesn’t stop. She pulls back only enough to catch Lexa’s gaze, green eyes dark and beautiful, and when she receives a small nod, she tugs the buckle open.

Lexa’s shoulder guard falls to the floor with a thud and clatter, and Clarke thinks they are one step closer to absolute, divine destruction. Her fumbling hands jerk awkwardly at Lexa’s pieces, all metal and leather and ties, and when she looks up briefly to see the other girl’s lips painted with an amused smile, a hard, resounding laugh rips up from Clarke’s throat. She presses it against Lexa’s smiling lips like she wants to share the taste, and it is just as messy as the last.

Lexa makes quick work of her armor, weapons, and top as Clarke yanks her own shirt over her head, hissing a bit as the material rubs over the bandage on her wounded arm. She barely gives it a thought, though; pulling Lexa back in before the material has even touched the floor.

A hard moan claws its way up from Clarke’s chest when she feels Lexa’s fingers scratch across her bare lower back, down her still-clothed hips, and grip into the backs of her thighs. When her back hits the wall a moment later, Clarke yelps against Lexa’s lips. She hadn’t even realized they were moving. The sharp contrast between the wall’s cold surface at her back and Lexa’s heat pushing against her chest and stomach, though, is overwhelming, and Clarke wants more. She needs more.

Gripping at Lexa’s neck, Clarke pulls her in harder, sinks her teeth into a full bottom lip and tries not to come undone at the soft, quiet growl that rumbles in Lexa’s throat. She slides her hands down Lexa’s back, pushes and pulls at the material of her bindings until they are loose enough for her to easily untie and unravel.

When the material goes slack in Clarke’s hands, Lexa breaks their kiss. She pants heavily against Clarke’s lips, only an inch away, and presses their foreheads together. Her open bindings are caught between their heaving chests, keeping her covered, and she lifts her hands to cup her palms around Clarke’s cheeks as she remains molded against her.

“Slow, Clarke,” Lexa whispers breathlessly. “Slow.”

Clarke takes a deep breath and nods against Lexa’s forehead. Her hands shake against Lexa’s bare back, her palms sweaty, and she presses them down harder to steady them. “Sorry,” she mutters, slipping one hand up to anchor it in Lexa’s hair. “I’m sorry. I just—”

“I know,” Lexa says, her fingers sliding down Clarke’s neck and over her shoulders, down her arms like they are silently mapping every inch, “but you have nothing to fear here, now, Clarke. I will not disappear.”

Clarke’s breath releases in a stutter of a sigh, fresh tears squeezing free as she closes her eyes and pushes her forehead just a bit harder against Lexa’s. “You’re alive,” she croaks, and the way her voice breaks around the words only causes the tears to rush up faster, more relentlessly. She is amazed at how easily she breaks. She clutches desperately to Lexa, and she knows her short nails are digging into Lexa’s back, but the other girl doesn’t say a word or move a muscle. She only continues to hold Clarke steady. “You’re alive.”

“Yes.” Lexa nudges her nose against Clarke’s cheek, catching a stream of tears and streaking through it.

“It almost doesn’t feel real,” Clarke mutters with a sad, strangled laugh. She is a mess of melding emotions that don’t fit together but somehow manage to merge. “I thought … in the woods, I thought maybe it wasn’t. I went into that tent, Lexa, and everything was burning, and I thought you were _dead_ , but then you weren’t, and you were there in the woods, and I thought I was imagining it, _you_. I thought—”

Her rambling words catch and die in her throat when Lexa shifts back just enough to let her bindings fall to the floor and leave her chest entirely bare.

“Touch me, Clarke,” she whispers, taking Clarke’s hand and pressing it against her chest. The thudding rhythm of her heart beats against Clarke’s palm, soothing and steady. “I am real.”

Clarke’s stomach clenches as Lexa’s strong heart races beneath her fingers. She swipes her thumb over the swell of a small breast and heaves out a wet sigh. Her insides are bubbling, full and alive, ready to boil over with all the things that demand to be felt, to be said, to be shared. Closing her eyes, Clarke pulls Lexa into her again, kisses the line of her jaw, the corner of her mouth, and thinks of Lexa’s quiet confession in the dark of their room in Polis.

“Lexa.” It is barely there, just a brush of sound against the air, but then Clarke opens her eyes, brings Lexa’s hand up to her own chest to settle over her heart, and says, “I’m weak, too.”

She knows Lexa understands when green eyes widen just slightly before softening, when slender fingers tremble atop Clarke’s chest, when a shaky nod and an even shakier kiss tenderly teach Clarke how to breathe and beat again.

They remain that way for a long moment, simply breathing one another in and pressing together in whispers of kisses. Clarke runs her hands up and down Lexa’s arms, stares down at her body, drinking in every angle. She keeps her gaze locked on Lexa’s when she pushes off the wall and says, “I want to look at you.”

Lexa gives only a small nod as Clarke’s hands slip down her arms again, as Clarke’s fingers brush over her rigid stomach, over tattoos she traced and became familiar with in Polis; over quivering inches begging for more.

Clarke absorbs the sight of Lexa, brave and bare in front of her, of her sprawling ink and scars, her prominent collarbones, the small swells of her breasts, and her stiff, pebbled nipples. She is beautiful, and Clarke is breathless.

She delicately touches the bubbled flesh of the strikes counting across Lexa’s collarbone. “Only eleven,” she whispers, and Lexa lets out a soft sigh.

“These, I received before I became Commander.” She reaches up and touches one, drops her gaze to the ground. “There was much war between the clans then.”

“Why did you stop getting them?” Clarke asks, and Lexa’s hand shifts to cover hers, squeezes it before sliding down the length of Clarke’s arm.

“Commanders do not receive kill scars,” she explains. “There would be too many.”

Clarke gives a small nod and leans forward to press a kiss to the dip at the base of her throat. “Do you remember them?” she whispers. “Those eleven? Do you remember your first?”

Another quiet sigh pushes free as Lexa brushes her fingers over Clarke’s braids and down the back of her neck. “I will never forget.”

Clarke nods, closes her eyes. She feels those words in every part of her, knows they could have bubbled up through her own lips and been just as true. “Neither will I,” she whispers, and there is something comforting about sharing this with Lexa. The ways they have suffered and survived, viciously, tremendously, have always been like strings tying and tethering them together, reminding Clarke that she isn’t alone. She is never alone.

She walks a slow half-circle around Lexa, rubs over Lexa’s rough elbows and sharp shoulder blades. Like her chest and sides, Lexa’s muscled back is marked with ink and scars that Clarke knows represent stories seared into Lexa’s history like they are seared into Lexa’s skin.

Great black wings, their feathered edges dancing with the outlined angles of flames, span the length of her back. Their arches are cut into Lexa’s shoulder blades and their tips disappear beneath the material of Lexa’s pants. Clarke imagines they could punch through Lexa’s skin, stretch outward, massive and powerful, and beat the air into wind; carry her off, a dark angel in the dark night.  

Clarke gathers Lexa’s hair and pushes it over her shoulder, traces the round, black outline of a symbol at the top of Lexa’s spine, just at the base of her neck. It is a wheel of some kind, beautiful and intricate, and Lexa lets out a soft breath at the touch.

“This represents the cycle of life,” she says as Clarke runs her finger around and around the wheel. “Life, death, and rebirth.” Clarke thinks of the grand stretch of a massive mural, and her fingers speckled with paint.

_Death is not the end._

Just beneath the wheel is another small symbol, a bow with an arrow set through it and pointing upward. “And the bow?” Clarke asks quietly.

Lexa reaches over her shoulder and presses her hand over Clarke’s on top of the symbol. “Costia,” she whispers, and Clarke’s throat tightens to the point of pain. She nods despite Lexa being unable to see her and turns her hand up so she can squeeze Lexa’s fingers. When Lexa lets go, Clarke presses a gentle kiss to Costia’s bow, pulled taut across a rigid spine, and then wraps her arms around Lexa’s middle from behind.

She wonders if Lexa even realizes how good she is, how _good_ she is in this fucked up world where children too often have to fight for their lives, too often have to become the stuff of nightmares that they can never truly wake from just so that they can survive. She thinks maybe Lexa will never know, never really understand, but Clarke sees it. She has learned, is learning more and more every day.

After a calm, quiet moment of simply holding Lexa, Clarke pulls back and brings her hands up to her own bindings. She unravels them and drops them to the floor with only a soft whooshing sound before wrapping around Lexa again. Her bare breasts press against Lexa’s back, and she feels Lexa shudder at the touch.

“Clarke,” she whispers, and Clarke kisses her shoulder blades. She runs her hands up Lexa’s stomach and over her chest, loves the way Lexa’s breath catches and shakes, the way Lexa’s stomach quivers beneath her fingertips.

“I want you,” Clarke mutters against inked skin. “I want this, everything. _Lexa_.” She turns Lexa in her arms, smiles at the way the Commander drinks in the sight of her, throat working around a visibly thick swallow. “No more barriers.”

Lexa’s nod is gentle, as gentle as her trembling lips when she pulls Clarke in for a kiss that isn’t messy or desperate, but is profound. It is alive, full, and promising, and when their naked chests press together, tender skin touching, static and warm, a ripple of thrill shoots down Clarke’s back and pools at the base of her spine. It makes Clarke ache in ways that she has little time to process before Lexa’s hands are slipping over the swells of her breasts and then down to the waistband of her pants. Her calloused fingers slip under and give a soft tug, causing Clarke’s stomach to clench against the digits.

“No more barriers, Clarke,” she whispers with another tug before kissing her again, and a throbbing sensation erupts between Clarke’s thighs. She reaches down to her pants as well and pushes at them, suddenly eager to be free and bare beneath Lexa’s now insistent hands.

She stumbles when Lexa moves her backward, laughs and yanks Lexa down with her when her knees hit the small bed on the other side of the room. A slight but stunning smile touches Lexa’s lips as she shifts back and lifts Clarke’s legs up to pull her pants down as far as they will go before they collide with her boots. She pulls those off, followed by the pants, and then Clarke is bare on the bed but for her underwear.

She reaches for Lexa, tugs at the metal cuff on her thigh before unclasping it and dropping it to the floor with a clatter. Together they quickly remove her boots and pants, until she is as bare as Clarke is, and then everything goes still for a moment; one heated moment in which the air seems to almost vibrate around them.

Lexa is slow and controlled when she finally lowers onto the bed and slides on top of Clarke, lithe and graceful like every movement is a careful dance, and Clarke bites her lip at the sight. She slides her hands up the lengths of Lexa’s sides and pulls her down, pulls her closer, and when Lexa’s muscled thigh slips between Clarke’s legs and presses firmly in, Clarke gasps hard and digs her nails into Lexa’s back.

“Clarke?” Lexa whispers, hovering over her with a furrowed brow and a beautiful pout, and Clarke can’t help but to bring up a hand to swipe her thumb across Lexa’s bottom lip.

“It’s good,” she says, pulling Lexa down to kiss her. She repeats the words on Lexa’s lips so that they vibrate between her teeth. “It’s _good_.”

Lexa touches her like she is uncharted land, precious and new, _alive_ , and eager to bloom with the right hand. Her gaze traces every inch, her eyes always open, absorbing. She goes willingly when Clarke rolls her onto her back, shudders beneath every kiss Clarke presses to her flesh, every swirl of Clarke’s tongue around a stiffened nipple or down into the dip of her navel.

Clarke kisses and nips at Lexa’s hipbones before tucking her fingers beneath the top of her underwear. They both draw in sharp, deep breaths when her fingers scratch through the coarse hairs underneath, and Clarke closes her eyes when she feels how damp they already are. Her breath slams from her lungs, and she dips her head down, drunk with the feeling, and rests her forehead atop Lexa’s abdomen.

“God,” she whispers, and Lexa's stomach jumps and quakes beneath her. “Lexa.”

“No barriers, Clarke,” Lexa murmurs again, a heated reminder, and her hands scratch at the back of Clarke’s head.

Clarke licks her lips and nods against Lexa’s stomach, curls her fingers around the waistband of Lexa’s underwear and pulls back to tug it down. With each new inch of bare flesh revealed, Clarke can feel her muscles tightening, her nerves igniting, her body throbbing. She slides the material down Lexa’s long, brawny legs, and lets it fall to the floor beside the bed.

Her fingers itch with anticipation as she holds Lexa’s gaze and runs her hands up naked thighs before crawling up the length of Lexa’s body and settling on top of her. She braces herself with one hand on the bed and uses the other to push at her own underwear, not wanting Lexa to feel alone in her exposure. She imagines Lexa never allows herself such vulnerability with anyone, and Clarke knows that this, all of this, is a sacred privilege.

Lexa helps her with the material until Clarke can use her other leg to push it the rest of the way down and kick it off, and it is awkward and clunky as such things tend to be, but Clarke thinks it is perfect this way—quiet and reverent and lovely even when it lacks grace. Their touches are timid but eager, needy and wanting but still slow and respectful, and everything is an exploration.

They are discovering one another in new ways, in bared flesh and youthful passion, in sensual sounds and searching fingers. They are casting their burdens aside, and for this one night, discovering what it means to love each other without control, to have each other without restraint, and there is something so incredibly natural about it, so weightless, so _free_.

They meet in a breathy kiss, the full lengths of their bare bodies now rubbing together, and Clarke has to stop herself from pushing down, seeking pressure to soothe the throb between her legs. She wants to take this slow, wants to take care of Lexa first just as Lexa has been taking care of her all this time—always attentive, always patient.

Lexa quakes beneath her, clutching at Clarke’s back and kissing her like she may come undone any moment. It is enough to push Clarke right to the edge but not quite enough to send her toppling over.

“I want to touch you,” Clarke breathes, and Lexa nods against her lips.

“Touch me, Clarke,” she whispers, just as she had before pressing Clarke’s hand to her heart, and Clarke throbs just as heavily as the Commander’s racing, comforting pulse had.

She slips her hand down between their bodies as they kiss, Lexa sucking at her bottom lip like it houses honey, and slides her fingers through the damp curls between Lexa’s legs again. She smiles into the kiss when she brushes over the small, straining bundle of nerves at the top of her slit and feels Lexa’s entire body jump in response. Hands clench harder against Clarke’s back when she slowly slides her middle finger up and down Lexa’s slit before circling her entrance once, twice.

She dips in, just the tip of her finger, and feels Lexa’s muscles clench around her, pull her in deeper. Lexa pants against her lips and squeezes her thighs tightly around Clarke’s hand, traps her there, and Clarke knows she needs more. She slips out of her and then in again, out and in, out and in, pushing deeper with every press inside, until she is buried to the knuckle, and when she pulls out this time, she adds a second finger and slowly works her way back inside.

Lexa is so quiet in her pleasure, quiet but for her soft, panting breaths, and Clarke finds everything about it magnetic and intoxicating. She leans on her elbow and watches Lexa’s face as she works between her legs, watches the way Lexa’s head tilts back, presses hard against the bed. The muscles of her neck are strained in the stretch, making beautiful, defined lines that Clarke softly kisses. The pebbled peaks of her nipples push upward in her arousal, and the valley between her breasts glistens with a sheen of sweat in the room’s low lights. Her hips arch up with each thrust of Clarke’s fingers, pushing up to meet her in equal effort, and the defined muscles adorning every inch of her ripple with every wave.

She is an exquisite, wild thing, somehow tame in her ecstasy; a natural wonder to behold. This is what it means to truly experience the earth, Clarke thinks, something so alive and precious, passionate and strong and dangerous and deadly, and beautiful, _beautiful._

Lexa’s orgasm is a soft gasp against Clarke’s lips, a trembling wave freezing at its peak before crashing. Ripples remain, sending shockwaves through her body, for long, breathless moments after, and Lexa holds onto Clarke like she is an anchor in the turbulence.

When she carefully pulls her fingers free from Lexa, the heat still lingers on Clarke’s damp flesh. She jolts when Lexa sits swiftly up and pulls her into a hard, unexpected kiss, and Clarke smiles into it, wide and unrestrained. Their teeth knock together, causing Clarke to laugh, but the sound quickly transforms into a yelp when Lexa’s hands suddenly slip beneath her, grip the backs of her thighs, and physically lift her off the bed.

Her arms and chest flex beautifully as she pulls Clarke over and into her lap, Clarke’s legs wrapping around her hips, and her heels pressing into Lexa’s lower back. When Clarke feels her slick heat press against the flat pane of Lexa’s abdomen, she can’t hold in the groan that rips free.

“Lexa,” she mutters, her hips bucking forward as her arms wrap around Lexa’s neck. One hand clenches around Lexa’s shoulder and the other tangles roughly in the hair at the base of her head. She grinds her body against Lexa, unable to stop herself. “Oh god,” she pants, and Lexa’s lips find their way to her throat, kiss and suck at the dip above her collarbone like she intends to leave a very visible mark.

Clarke reaches for Lexa’s hand and shifts it from her hip to the slim space between their bodies. She presses Lexa’s palm against her heat so that her entire sex is being cupped, and her voice is an awful, croaking mess when she pleads, “Touch me.”

“Touch me, Lexa,” she says again, bucking against her hand, and Lexa doesn’t disappoint. Her slender fingers slide through Clarke’s wet heat, and Clarke nearly comes at the sound of satisfaction that slips through Lexa’s lips, the breathless way the Commander whispers her name like a prayer.

And when Lexa enters her, two fingers buried deep in one swift thrust, a strangled cry pulls up from Clarke’s throat, and she has to remind herself how to breathe. She wraps her arms tightly around Lexa, clenching her arms to brace herself as she pumps against Lexa’s hand and shakes with every perfect thrust, every knowing curl of Lexa’s fingers inside her.

Lexa’s lips worship her sweat-slicked skin in soft presses and open-mouthed reverence, nips of her teeth atop the swells of Clarke’s breasts, and languid sucking pulls around her nipples and at the flesh of her throat. Clarke wonders if Lexa is alive with the feeling, if the scents and sounds of being inside her are enough to dizzy up the girl and make her ache the way Clarke does.

She is the vast expanse of space when she comes apart at Lexa’s ministrations—wide open and breathless, _immense_. Little bursting pops of light flare behind her lids like stars when she clamps her eyes closed and topples over the edge into oblivion.

When her limbs go limp and she caves around the body beneath her, Clarke presses her sweaty forehead to Lexa’s and lifts a hand to cup her jaw. They breathe together in the silence, both liquid and loose but still burning as Lexa remains deliciously buried inside her, and Clarke thinks it cannot possibly get any better than this.

But then Lexa kisses her jaw and whispers, “Breathe, Clarke.” Her free hand swipes down the damp length of Clarke’s back and squeezes her hip. “We have only just begun."

* * *

“Clarke.”

Lexa’s voice is lazy, slipping away even as it fights to survive, and Clarke knows she is barely awake. Exhaustion is a disease racking their bones. She squeezes Lexa’s side in the now dark room and wraps more fully around her, every bare inch pressing in like puzzle pieces finding their matches.

“Yeah?” she whispers into the otherwise silent dark.

Lexa tangles their fingers together and brings their joined hands to the steady rise and fall of her chest. Her tired words seem to resound in the quiet room, throb in Clarke’s ears and in her chest, in every aching part. “This is not weakness.”

Clarke’s breath quivers between her lips as she nods against the warm flesh of Lexa’s back and presses a kiss between her shoulder blades. “I know.”

She does.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the incredibly response to last chapter! I appreciate it more than you all know. I hope you all enjoy this one! XO-Chrmdpoet

Little zaps of pain flare behind her eyelids as Clarke yawns herself awake and rubs at her eyes. They are dry and itching—irritated from all the smoke of the attack fires and too much crying. When she blinks them open, though, the stinging pain is quickly forgotten as she takes in the sight of the naked woman pressed against her, eyes already open wide and watching Clarke.

Biting her lip, Clarke reaches out and runs a hand over Lexa’s fuzzy hair, braids loose and partially undone, wild against the pillow they shared most of the night. “Hi,” she whispers, and Lexa’s lips pull slowly up with a smile.

“What?” Clarke asks when Lexa says nothing, only continuing to smile like she has some secret she is withholding. She watches as that smile grows.

“What?” Lexa echoes, and Clarke rolls her eyes.

“What are you smiling about?”

“I was thinking.”

“About what?” She thinks she already knows, and her stomach flips at the thought. Her own lips tug upward, and she can’t help but to draw the other girl closer.

Lexa runs her hand down the length of Clarke’s side, draws patterns into her hip with her fingertips, and arches a brow. “Shall we always celebrate this way when I survive battle?”

Clarke blinks, taken aback, and then blushes. Her words are decorated in quiet laughter when she pokes Lexa’s stomach and murmurs, “Shut up.”

“The life of a Commander is a dangerous one, Clarke,” Lexa says, her smile growing until her lips visibly strain to remain closed, “fraught with many perils.”

Rolling her eyes again, Clarke shakes her head. “Is this you being funny?” she drawls. “Do your people know you have a sense of humor?”

“It was quite the celebration, Clarke.”

When Clarke lets out a groan, Lexa laughs. It is low and melodic, beautiful, _rare,_ and Clarke wants to crawl inside that sound and live in it. She buries her head in Lexa’s neck, her hand resting on the Commander’s stomach as it shakes beneath her fingers with Lexa’s soft, sleep-worn laughter. The vibration is soothing, and Clarke thinks she could just stay here with Lexa, like this, until the world ends all over again.

“Well, if it means you’re going to start deliberately seeking out unsafe situations just so you can claim the prize,” Clarke says, rubbing her thumb slowly back and forth over Lexa’s navel, “then we’re definitely not going to celebrate this way again.”

Lexa lets out the softest of sighs and nuzzles her nose against the top of Clarke’s head, and Clarke can’t help but to think that this, all of this, feels so incredibly surreal. This sort of moment, this ease and comfort and _joy_ feels like a dream, and Clarke has this tiny biting fear in the back of her brain that, at any moment, she is going to wake up from this.

But Lexa doesn’t drift away. She doesn’t disappear in a haze or a blink or the gaping stretch of a yawn. She remains solid and steady, and her voice is as real and soothing as the air in Clarke’s lungs when she whispers, “You are no prize, Clarke.”

Clarke shifts back so that she can look into Lexa’s eyes. “No?”

“No,” Lexa murmurs, shaking her head. “Your body is your own, as is your heart. They are not to be won or owned.”

Smiling slowly, Clarke bends to press a kiss to Lexa’s chest but stops and jerks back when she catches a glimpse of red. Her heart clenches to the point of pain and then kicks into overdrive when she pulls back further to find crimson smudges marring the length of Lexa’s side and staining the sheets in the small space between their bodies.

“Blood,” Clarke gasps. “There’s blood. Lexa, you’re bleeding.” Lexa shifts and Clarke presses her hand to the stained side, frantically feeling for injuries that do not seem to want to be found.

“Clarke.”

“Where are you hurt?” Clarke runs her hand down Lexa’s side again. “Lexa!” Her eyes sting with tears already building, and she is just about to try to flip Lexa over to investigate her back when Lexa’s hands come up to latch onto Clarke’s wrist.

“Clarke,” she says again, hard and clear.

Clarke sucks in a sharp breath through her nose, and a wave of dizziness racks her body. Her eyes flutter, and she blinks hard to try to clear away the spots suddenly dotting her vision. When she opens them again, the spots are gone, and she takes another short breath before looking to Lexa.

“It is _your_ blood,” Lexa says softly. Her gaze shifts to the side as she carefully runs her fingertips over the stained bandage on Clarke’s arm.

It takes a moment for it to sink in, Clarke blinking slowly as she stares down at her own arm and its blood-marked bandage, but then a great, heaving sigh pushes through her lips and she closes her eyes. Lexa is fine. She’s _fine_. _She’s fucking fine._

Clarke licks her lips, takes another breath, and nods. “I must have busted a few stitches last night.” She shakes her head as her heart rate slows, and her stomach unwinds itself. A small laugh slips through when she adds, “During the ‘celebration’.”

Lexa doesn’t smile, though. She hardly seems to notice that Clarke has spoken at all as she stares up toward the ceiling just past Clarke’s shoulder. She stares like she is suddenly somewhere far away, drifting; like she might never come down again.

“Hey,” Clarke says softly, pressing her hand gently to the flat plane of flesh between Lexa’s breasts. “What is it?”

“You were injured,” Lexa whispers, swallowing visibly, “at the edge of my sword.”

“You know that wasn’t your fault,” Clarke says. “That warrior _threw_ me at you, and actually, if you weren’t so quick to react and shift, I might have had it a lot worse.”

Lexa closes her eyes and lets out a soft breath through her nose, squeezes her hand tightly around Clarke’s thigh where it is strung over Lexa’s waist.

“Hey,” Clarke whispers again. She tilts Lexa’s chin, nudges it with her knuckle until Lexa opens her eyes for her. “I’m fine. It only stings a bit, and it won’t take long to stitch it up again. I’m _fine_. Okay?”

Lexa stares at her for a long moment as if gauging Clarke’s sincerity, but then she blinks slowly and gives one firm nod.

“Good,” Clarke says, leaning down to press their lips gently together. It is slow and full, reassuring, and they both melt into it, their bodies melding together like merging waters. When they part, Clarke rests her forehead against Lexa’s as she hovers slightly over her. They stay that way so long that Clarke thinks she could just shift slightly to the side and fall right back to sleep, warm in Lexa’s embrace, but she knows they need to get up. They need to go. There is so much, too much, to be done.

“Okay,” she whispers, “as much as it pains me to say this, we have to get up.”

Lexa lets out a sigh so long and exaggerated that it sounds like a strange mixture of a growl and a whine, and Clarke can’t help but to laugh. She thinks of Polis and of the way Lexa would huff like a child when the sun rose on a day far too demanding, and she laughs even harder.

“I wonder what people would think if they could see you like this,” she teases, “if they knew the all-powerful Commander was a soft little sleepyhead who whines about getting out of bed.”

Lexa narrows her eyes into a glare. “There is no need to wonder, Clarke, because no one ever _will_ know,” she says. “So you see? You exercise your mind needlessly.”

Clarke laughs out loud again—a hard, wonderful bark of sound that jumps up and out of her like it is desperate to be felt and heard. “Oh, is that right?”

“It is.”

“And what if I wanted to tell someone?”

Lexa grins and pulls Clarke more fully on top of her. “I quite enjoy your tongue, Clarke,” she says. “I would hate to have to cut it out.”

Clarke laughs even harder, and Lexa pulls her down into a kiss that muffles the sound between them.

When they break apart several long moments later, Lexa lets out a contented sigh, cups Clarke’s cheek, and whispers, “Your arm requires attention.”

“It does.”

Lexa rolls Clarke over so that she is on top of her for only a moment before popping out of the bed. She stands in front of Clarke, fully nude, and Clarke drinks in the sight, staring unabashedly until she realizes that Lexa isn’t moving. Looking up, Clarke finds Lexa smirking at her, and she groans.

“Who is whining now, Clarke?”

* * *

Once they are fully dressed, Clarke opens the door and immediately startles. Indra stands like a statue just outside the door, eyes hard and one hand firmly gripping the hilt of the sword attached to her hip. She glances to Clarke, and Clarke watches as the woman’s eyes roam down from her face to her neck and chest and then back up, which Clarke finds strange, but she simply shrugs it off and greets the warrior with a nod. “Indra.”

Indra purses her lips and gives a slight shake of her head. “Sky Girl.”

“I have a name, you know,” Clarke tells her, and Indra only stares at her, her expression unmoving, so Clarke simply sighs and steps by her.

When they reach the medical bay, Indra posts up outside the entrance without a word, her body turned so that she can see from almost all directions at the same time, and Clarke and Lexa make their way inside.

Raven is seated on a table in only her pants, one boot, and a sports bra while Abby hovers around her, checking her back and palpating different points on her leg and foot.

“And how’s the pain?” Clarke hears her mother ask.

“Eh, no more or less than usual,” Raven tells her. She glances up when Clarke clears her throat, and a smile barely touches her lips before dropping into a solemn line as Raven’s gaze darts to Lexa. Clarke can practically see the weight falling on Raven’s shoulders, the way her body seems to cave in on itself, and her voice grows thin and strained. She knows Raven is thinking of the attack, and her role in it. “Clarke, hey.”

“Hey,” Clarke says softly before crossing the room. She squeezes Raven’s shoulder and glances down to the girl’s leg. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Raven assures, knocking her fist against the top of her thigh. “Just a check-up.”

“Raven is doing great,” Abby says, and Clarke resists the urge to roll her eyes. She ignores her mother’s words, but when Abby looks over at her, she sees the woman’s eyes go immediately to her bicep. “I see that _you_ aren’t, on the other hand.”

Clarke glances down to see a small circle of red seeping through the material of the fresh shirt she had found in Lexa’s new room. “I’m fine,” she says, clearing her throat. “I just busted a few stitches.”

“Yes, there is no need to guess how,” Abby drawls, pursing her lips, and Raven lets out a small, raspy laugh.

“What are you talking about?” Clarke snaps, and Raven chuckles again.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” she says, reaching for an empty medical tray on the other side of the table she is sitting on. “I figured you knew.” She holds up the metal tray so that Clarke can see her reflection in it, and Clarke has to resist the urge to gasp when her gaze latches onto a large purpled mark at the base of her neck.

Clarke immediately cups a hand over the mark, which she knows is pointless because everyone has already seen it, including her _mother_ , whose narrowed eyes are now glancing back and forth between her and Lexa. Clarke shifts awkwardly in the strange, tense silence that suddenly fills the room, only disturbed by Raven’s quiet, breathy laughter.

“This is so awkward,” Raven chuckles. “I love it.”

Clenching her jaw, Clarke glances toward Lexa as she feels heat flood her face and neck.

Lexa stands stiffly beside her, obviously avoiding Clarke’s gaze, and while she keeps her head held high, she wastes little time in making a break for it. With a gentle clearing of her throat, Lexa simply turns on her heel and walks away without a word, making a beeline toward the back of the bay where Algor has been staying.

“This just got so much more interesting,” Raven says, laughing even harder at Lexa’s swift, wordless exit. She then claps Clarke on her uninjured arm. “Thanks for that, Clarke. You really improved my mood.”

While the words are light-hearted and non-judgmental, Clarke can tell by the pointed look Raven gives her that she intends them to discuss this further at a later time, preferably one in which Clarke’s mother isn’t hovering over them like a fly looking for a place to land.

* * *

An unnerving silence thickens the air of the medical bay as Clarke sits rigidly on the table Raven had abandoned in order to return to her station. She keeps her eyes fixed straight ahead as her mother rolls up her sleeve, peels away her now useless bandage, and begins cleaning her wound. It is just the two of them now.

“You pulled six stitches,” Abby says quietly.

Clarke gives a nod but nothing more, and Abby sighs.

“These are a mess,” she murmurs. “You should have let _me_ stitch this wound, Clarke. I’m going to have to remove the sutures and re-stitch the entire wound in order to keep you from scarring.”

“No,” Clarke says, shaking her head.

“Clarke.”

“No, just patch up the parts that need it and leave the rest alone,” Clarke tells her. “I don’t care if I scar.”

“Clarke, you’re being ridiculous.”

“Why?” Clarke challenges. “Why is it ridiculous for me to disagree with you? You want to do something one way, and I don’t. That doesn’t make me ridiculous. I think you’ve proven that it’s pretty smart for me to not go along with your decisions, haven’t you?”

Abby puts down the cotton swab she had been using to clean Clarke’s wound and steps away. Bracing her hands on the table, Abby leans against it and lets her shoulders slump and her head fall between her arms, and the sight causes Clarke’s stomach to lurch but she ignores the feeling and keeps her jaw tight and her resolve steady.

“I’m sorry,” Abby says, the words muffled by the way her head is tucked. Clarke hears her take a staggered breath, and then Abby rises to full height again. Her eyes are glossy when she looks to her daughter, and Clarke has to force herself not to turn away from the sight. “I’m _sorry_ about the attack, Clarke. I didn’t ....” She sighs and shakes her head, and then the gloss in her eyes turns to visible tears, building at the edges and threatening to spill over. “I’m trying to make the right choices. I’m trying to keep these people safe and alive. I’m trying to do what’s _best_ , but how can anyone even begin to know what that is anymore? It feels like every time I try, I make things worse, and I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Hearing her mother break down this way, put all her fears and worries on display, tugs at Clarke’s insides and makes her feel sick to her stomach. She swallows thickly. “You should listen to _me_ ,” she says, and she hates the way her voice cracks. It is barely audible but she hears it nonetheless, and she knows her mother has to as well.

“You’re a child, Clarke!” Abby snaps, though it leaves her as more of a loud, echoing sob than anything even remotely aggressive, and that only pains Clarke more. “You’re _my_ child. I carried you inside me. I checked under your bed for monsters. I sang to you when you were sick. You’re _my baby_ , Clarke. Do you think I want this for you? I don’t want you to have to make these decisions. I don’t want you to have to carry all this weight. I want to protect you from it, from all of it, but I—every time I try, I—”

Abby cuts herself off, wipes quickly at her eyes and nose, and shakes her head. She doesn’t meet Clarke’s gaze when she whispers, “I’m doing the best I can.”

The words strike at Clarke’s heart like a whip, and she hears her own voice inside her head, sees Octavia’s rigid jaw and hard eyes.

_I’m doing the best I can._

_That’s not good enough._

Her eyes flood with tears. Her chest feels so tight that she is struggling to breathe, and every time she swallows, her throat scratches and screams in protest. This is too much.

“Clarke.”

Clarke and Abby both turn toward the voice, their tear-streaked cheeks on full display. Lexa stands several feet away in the open entryway to the far end of the bay, and the first thing Clarke notices is that Lexa’s braids are now tight and neat again, her hair slightly less wild. The second thing she notices is that Lexa’s eyes are fixed on her, and one of the Commander’s brows is arched in a silent question.

Letting out a shaky breath, Clarke wipes quickly at her eyes. “I’m fine,” she says, and Lexa only lingers a moment before glancing to Abby, giving Clarke a nod, and turning to disappear to the back again.

The silence seeps back in with her exit, and Clarke stares at her boots where her legs are dangling off the table while she listens to her mother sniffle and blow her nose and wipe down her cheeks and hands. Abby quickly sanitizes and then returns to Clarke’s side.

“Do you want the shot or the cream?” she asks, voice gruff but firm, like the conversation they were having had never even happened, like she had never broken down, like they are fine, fine, fine, and everything is _fine_.

“You know I don’t like the shots.”

“The cream won’t numb it as much,” Abby warns, and Clarke nods. She wants to scream. Every inch of her flesh is crawling with the feeling.

“I know,” she says instead, keeping her voice controlled. “I’ll be fine.”

Abby applies the numbing cream and gives it a few moments to work. “Let me know when it begins to tingle.”

With Clarke’s nod of agreement, they fall once more into deafening silence. Abby hardly lets it live, though, before she clears her throat again and quietly asks, “So, how long has that been going on?”

Part of Clarke wants to play stupid, pretend she doesn’t know what her mother is talking about, or just deny as much as she can for as long as she can. She doesn’t feel like dealing with this, the protest she knows she is likely to receive. She doesn’t feel like dealing with anything right now, or anyone. Still, that doesn’t stop her from answering. It never does.

“I don’t know exactly,” she says honestly. “We’ve been something for a while now.”

“I see.”

Clarke wiggles her arm a bit. “It’s tingling.”

As Abby begins her work on Clarke’s arm, she asks, “Is it just sex or are y—”

“Mom,” Clarke groans, rolling her eyes up toward the ceiling and tilting her head back.

“I can’t ask a question?”

“Not that question.”

“Clarke, I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“You’re prying.”

“I’m your mother.”

“I love her.”

Abby stills next to her, the needle in her hand freezing in place halfway through the flesh of Clarke’s open wound. When Clarke clears her throat, Abby jolts and quickly pushes the needle the rest of the way through. She finishes the remaining sutures in silence, and it eats at Clarke like it is big and alive enough to have grown teeth.

“You don’t approve of her,” Clarke says when Abby finishes applying a fresh bandage, unable to stand the silence any longer. “I know you don’t approve of her.”

“I don’t _know_ her, Clarke,” her mother replies, lowering her voice. “All that I do know is this: the amount of responsibility that girl is carrying, the weight on her shoulders ….”

“Just say what you want to say,” Clarke urges, and Abby sighs.

“Clarke,” she says, resting a hand on her daughter’s knee, “I can see that Lexa is very strong, very capable, and she cares about you. That much is clear.”

“But?”

“But if you stay with her, you will always be tied to this life—all this drama and chaos and _war_. You will _always_ be fighting, Clarke; one battle after another for a peace that won’t ever come or last, and you won’t ever be free.”

The words cause Clarke’s breath to catch in her throat. She thinks of the glowing forest, remembers the way Lexa’s hand felt in hers when she offered her a momentary escape. Even faced with the brunt of Clarke’s anger and hatred, Lexa had stood in the glow with her and promised that, for a breath in time, they could be children again.

_What is your wish, Clarke?_

“It doesn’t matter,” Clarke says, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter if we always have to fight or if we never find peace. We’re always going to have this weight on us no matter _what_ happens, the people we’ve lost and the things we’ve done. Those things will never go away.”

Clarke reaches up to wipe at the wet corner of her eye. “But you know what? I think I’m finally starting to be okay with that.”

“How?” Abby asks. “How can you be okay with that?”

“Because, Mom,” she whispers, “even if we never really _can_ be, being with Lexa makes me feel free.”

* * *

Algor, who Abby finally cleared to leave the medical bay, walks alongside Indra as they escort Clarke and Lexa to the stockade. He was told to take it easy, but Clarke can tell that he is itching to get outside, move around, feel the sun. She is just happy to have him at her side again.

“No holding back this time,” Clarke says once they reach the door. “We need answers.”

Lexa arches a brow but then simply tilts her head forward in a solid nod.

Closing her eyes, Clarke takes a moment to prepare herself. She thinks of the way she felt as she watched Lexa’s tent go up in flames, the assault of the heat against her face as she stared at the burning cot that she was unable to reach, the racing beat in her chest as she ran through the woods with bodies beneath her feet. She lets the fear and the anger revive and rip through her, flooding free as if she is living it all over again, and when it fills up all her spaces, Clarke opens the door.

She tears into the stockade like a fire storm, her fury sucking the oxygen from the room until she feels immense and unstoppable, and Lexa is right on her heels, leaving Indra and Algor to stand guard at the door.

Echo looks up, blinking rapidly as the lights suddenly flicker on, and her brow furrows.

“Get up,” Clarke snaps at the shackled woman.

“What is this?” Echo asks, and Clarke feels the fire in her veins grow hotter.

“I said _get up_.” Clarke steps forward and grabs the other girl by the front of her shirt. She wastes no time in using the material to yank Echo to her feet. “Whatever game you’re playing—the silence and cryptic remarks—it ends now.”

Echo clenches her jaw and juts her chin forward. Her eyes are hard and determined as she meets Clarke’s gaze. Voice low and cold, she asks, “You think I am afraid of you, Sky Girl?”

Fist still buried in Echo’s shirt, Clarke leans in until their noses are almost brushing and lowers her voice to match the Grounder’s. “You should be.”

Clarke is taken off guard when Echo suddenly jerks up her shackled hands and drives them as one large collective fist into Clarke’s gut. Clarke stumbles backward, heaving out a hard breath as the air is knocked out of her, and before she can even gasp to replace it, Lexa’s sword is drawn and pressed to Echo’s abdomen. The tip of the blade hovers over the material of Echo’s dirty, wrinkled shirt, just below her sternum, and Lexa holds it there, steady.

“Touch her again,” Lexa growls, her voice thick and hard, terrifying in its promise, “and I will spill your insides to the ground while you still breathe.”

Clarke finally manages to take a deep breath and looks to Lexa. The Commander is poised, but she isn't tense, and her eyes tell Clarke that the threat is anything but idle. Her stomach flips and her throat goes dry, but she takes in another breath, fights off the ache in her gut, and turns her focus back to the prisoner.

Echo hardly pays Lexa any mind, nor does she seem to care about the threat of the blade. She keeps her eyes locked on Clarke and even pushes forward against the Commander's sword.

"I lived in a cage as an animal for weeks," she spits. "I watched from beneath a floorboard as my mother and father were slaughtered by a warring clan when I was barely old enough to speak. I was trained as a warrior of the _Azgeda_ with a whip to my back. I have lived on the brink of death. You do _not_ scare me, Sky Girl. You never will."

Clarke feels her heart clench in her chest, the images called to mind by Echo's words haunting her. She stumbles for a moment, unable to speak.

"And I?" Lexa challenges, filling in the silence. "You do not fear me, _Natrona_?"

Echo's hardened features falter for a moment, only a moment, before she becomes a stone fortress again. She says nothing, though, neither confirming nor denying a fear of the Commander, and Clarke watches the way she presses to Lexa's sword, the way she doesn't back off even when her clothes begin to stain crimson around the blade's tip. Clarke's skin crawls as she thinks of Finn and the way it felt to watch him be shackled to a post, the way it felt to stand at the tip of Indra's spear and let it slice through her flesh, and suddenly, she realizes—

"Stop," she says, stepping forward. She gently touches Lexa's forearm, and while Lexa does not step away, she does just slightly lower her sword so that it is no longer piercing Echo's skin. Her icy green gaze never once moves from the Grounder.

Clarke takes another step closer to Echo, meets her gaze, and quietly asks, "Who are you protecting?"

Echo's eyes widen minutely, but instead of answering, she only clenches her jaw and shakes her head.

"Someone you love," Clarke says, glancing to Lexa. Those words draw the Commander's gaze, and Clarke can see the memory and realization sinking in for Lexa as well as they hold one another's eyes. Clarke then turns back to Echo and asks, "Is your queen holding someone you love as leverage? Will someone be hurt? Killed?"

Echo's hard eyes gloss over as she breathes sharply and audibly through her nose, her breaths growing quicker. Her voice only slightly wobbles, though, when she says, "I owe you no answers."

"You do actually," Clarke tells her, her anger spiking again. "You _do_ owe me answers. You owe all my people answers. You owe _Bellamy_ answers, and—"

"You owe answers to your own people," Lexa says, "and to me. Much blood was shed last night.”

"People died, Echo," Clarke growls. "People are dead, _a lot_ of people, and your Commander could have been one of them. We know your people used the information you got and the supplies you stole to launch the attack. You need to start talking."

"My _Kwin_ ," Echo starts but then clamps her mouth closed again. Her eyes widen as if she is surprised with herself, and she shakes her head.

"Your _Kwin_ is _not_ your _Heda_ ," Lexa hisses. "You have committed treason, and you will pay with your life as those in the woods already have."

"Or you can start cooperating with us," Clarke says quickly, and Lexa’s head snaps in her direction. "Give us the information we need, and we might spare you."

Lexa immediately opens her mouth to say something, but Clarke does her best to plead with her eyes for Lexa to trust her. She thinks for a second that it won’t work, but then Lexa closes her mouth, her lips forming a tight, thin line, and turns back to Echo.

The Grounder’s eyes are the most expressive Clarke has seen them, wider and more vulnerable than ever before as she stares at Lexa. Clarke knows she is waiting for confirmation from the Commander’s lips that this offer is true, that she could be spared, _protected_.

When Lexa finally nods, Echo’s shoulders sag.

“Now speak,” Lexa demands.

“She sees all,” Echo says, licking her visibly dry lips. “She will know I have betrayed her.”

“You will be protected,” Clarke assures, but Echo shakes her head.

“I do not worry for my life,” the Grounder says, “but for the life of my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

“He is ill,” she mutters, “ _affected_.”

Lexa’s expression turns solemn as she gives a curt nod, but Clarke doesn’t understand what this means.

“He was cast out by our people when he was a babe,” Echo tells her, “but I shielded him. I hid him, but she _sees_. She knows.”

“And she used your brother to get you to come here after she found out you survived the mountain,” Clarke says, filling in the blanks. “So they were already here, already planning before the war even started. They just made a new plan when—”

“They have made many new plans,” Echo says, cutting her off. “They have been watching every move, listening too.”

“Listening?” Clarke asks. “How?”

“The _Azgeda_ members of the high council,” Echo tells her. “They have communicated their knowledge from Polis.”

“So, the people watching the camp,” Clarke says. “They knew I was in Polis.”

Echo nods. “They knew of your presence there, yes, and of your … your _closeness_ to the Commander. They knew you would send for aid if attacked on your journey here. They guessed the Commander would come herself for the Sky Girl.”

Clarke’s stomach lurches and her head spins with this new information. If she hadn’t sent for aid, if Lexa hadn’t come for her—they had played right into this; or rather, the Ice Nation had been marking their every move and anticipating their next. They are like pieces on a chess board, Clarke thinks, only she isn’t sure how many pieces they have left.

“You were not intended to survive last night’s attack,” Echo says, looking to Lexa. “Neither were your guards.”

“To kill the Commander is to kill the coalition,” Lexa says, and Echo nods.

“But why not just send someone to kill her when she was on her way here?” Clarke questions. “Why not in Polis? Why not at the relief camp? Why now? Why here?”

Echo turns to look at Clarke then. “Because _you_ are here.”

“Me?” Clarke’s face scrunches with her confusion. “What do I have to do with it?”

“Everything,” Lexa sighs, turning toward Clarke. “Suspicions of your motives were raised in Polis.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Clarke says, and then her eyes widen as it quickly begins to sink in.

“Suspicion is a spark,” Echo says, snapping her fingers as if she is striking a match. “The attack was meant to be the flame, and the death of the Commander—a fire that could not be contained.”

“War,” Lexa says.

Echo nods. “War.”

“When _Trigedakru_ came looking for answers and vengeance, the _Azgeda_ would be hidden, the Commander would be dead, and the Sky People would be blamed. My _Kwin_ would then come to offer an alliance between Sky and _Azgeda_.”

“With the weapons from Mount Weather and our technology,” Clarke says, her stomach twisting, “and the Ice Nation’s numbers—”

“The other clans would be forced into submission,” Echo finishes.

Clarke sees Lexa close her eyes for a moment, jaw clenching even harder until it looks like it is physically paining her, but then her eyes open once more and she quickly slips her sword back into its sheath. “This ends now,” Lexa growls, her voice low and cutting. “Where is your _Kwin_?”

“Close,” Echo tells her. She then hesitates before saying, “My brother will know much pain at her hand before he ever knows death. That will be her price for my betrayal.”

“Not if we can help it,” Clarke says, and Lexa nods.

Clarke then pulls a small key from her pocket, having retrieved it from one of the guards before sending him on his way. She steps forward to unlock the shackles on Echo’s wrists. “I’m going to let you out of these now,” she says, “but you’ll still have to stay here until we speak with the others and decide how we want to deal with this. You’re not going to try anything stupid, are you?”

Echo gives a small shake of her head, and Clarke nods. “Okay. Good.” She frees the Grounder’s wrists from the shackles and steps quickly back as Echo lets out a low sigh and rubs at her sore wrists. She then surprises them both by simply leaning against the wall and sliding back down to the floor.

“She will not stop,” Echo says, looking up at Lexa. “You know her thirst. She will create a new plan if she must, and she sees all. Her fight has only just begun.”

Lexa takes in a sharp breath through her nose, and her eyes flicker to Clarke’s. They are green fire, dancing with dark promise, as she says, “Her fight is _over_.”


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. Apologies for the short delay. I've had a rough week. 
> 
> As a warning, this chapter is very emotional and very heavy. It is a conversation-heavy chapter that focuses primarily on grief and trauma, so I just wanted to give a warning about that. This chapter is very close to my heart, and it was definitely a difficult one to write because of all the emotions it evoked, but it was a lovely journey still. :) I hope you will all enjoy it as well.
> 
> I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of Nilu's cover of "How to Save a Life" by The Fray, specifically that cover of it. It is a gorgeous cover, and I hope you will give it a shot. Enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

Exhaustion screams in Clarke’s bones by the time she and Lexa are finished talking with Echo. Her knees ache from standing and squatting, moving tirelessly around the small room while they discussed locations, advantages, strategies, and possible outcomes, using Echo’s information and knowledge of the queen to assist. When Lexa agrees that they should call it a day, Clarke practically sings. She is more than ready to collapse into a bed, Lexa’s warm body encasing hers and soothing her to sleep, though she knows she needs to stop by and speak with Raven first. They are going to need her help with a few things.

When they exit the stockade, Clarke is surprised to find Bellamy waiting. He leans against the curved wall of the tunnel, held at bay by Indra and Algor, two solid statues preventing entry. Clarke hasn’t seen him since the attack, and she isn’t sure she is ready to see him now. As much as she empathizes with him, there are parts of her still burning with anger.

“Clarke,” he says, and his voice cracks as if he hasn’t used it in hours, days. He sounds as exhausted as Clarke feels.

Steeling herself, Clarke lets out a hard sigh and pushes past him. “She’s tired, but you can see her if you want.”

“Clarke, wait.”

“She’s not shackled anymore,” Clarke throws over her shoulder, still walking with Lexa at her side and Indra and Algor following, “but she isn’t leaving that room. So, if you want to talk to her, go ahead, but she goes nowhere.”

“I was angry!” Bellamy calls, his voice straining as it grows in volume, and Clarke closes her eyes as she slows to a stop.

When she opens them again, Lexa is right in front of her, brow arched in question, and Clarke gives her a tired, half-hearted smile. “Go ahead,” she mutters. “I’ll meet up with you in a bit.”

Lexa sends a cutting glance in Bellamy’s direction, but she doesn’t question Clarke. She simply motions for Indra and Algor to follow her out, and they turn to leave. When they round the corner out of sight, Clarke takes a deep breath and turns around. Bellamy hasn’t moved, still leaning against the wall outside the stockade, his shaggy hair dangling down with the forward tilt of his head. His eyes are fixed on the floor.

“When you left,” he rasps, the choked, grainy quality of his voice tugging at Clarke’s insides, “I was angry.”

Clarke doesn’t say anything but simply braces herself, crossing her arms over her chest and watching the way Bellamy shakes his head as he stares at the floor. She tries not to think about the day she left, the forgiveness he offered that they both knew he couldn’t _really_ give. She tries not think about all that she was running from, and how parts of her will likely never stop running.

“Not at first,” he tells her. “At first, I was just worried. I thought maybe you didn’t have your head on straight, maybe you just needed a little space.” He runs a hand through his hair before tilting his head back against the wall and looking over at her. “I thought about going after you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Clarke says, hugging herself tighter. “I didn’t want to be found.”

“I know.” Bellamy nods, and with every breath, it seems like his shoulders droop further, like his body is caving in on itself. “I didn’t _want_ to know that, but I knew.” He swipes a hand through his hair again, pushes it away from his eyes. “After a few days, I was less worried and more pissed off. I thought you were being selfish, running away from what we did, running away from all of us after everything.”

Clarke’s insides squirm, and her chest squeezes until it feels like it might collapse.

“ _I_ didn’t run,” Bellamy says, and the words are like a slap to the face even though Clarke knows they aren’t meant to harm, not now, not anymore. “Raven didn’t run. Octavia didn’t run. But _you_ did. You just took off.”

Her words feel too thick for her tongue when Clarke shifts uncomfortably on her feet and whispers, “I know.”

“And I was mad,” he says, taking a loud, deep breath and blowing it out like it contains a part of his soul, heavy and alive. “I don’t think I even realized how mad I was. Sometimes, I’m _still_ mad, but I get it now. I think I get it.”

Clarke licks her lips and nods. “I didn’t want you to have to get it,” she mutters, and Bellamy offers her a weak smile.

“I had nightmares,” he tells her, his eyes glossy despite his jaw being clenched like it can somehow prevent a breakdown, “after what we did, and sometimes I’d wake up and I’d be so angry. I’d go outside, and I’d watch them all goofing off or just relaxing and not knowing, not _understanding_ what we did for them, and I … I resented them for it.” His voice cracks again before crumbling entirely, but he pushes through, all gravel and grief too deep to be housed in such a young soul.

“I resented them for being happy, because I couldn’t be. What we did, it’s _in_ me, and it sent you away, and it broke Jasper, and it hardened Octavia, and they—” He waves a hand pointlessly, an indication of all the people they can’t always see, maybe can’t even name, but are always protecting. “They don’t have to feel any of that, and I _hate_ that I resented them for that, that I still sometimes do.”

“I know,” Clarke whispers wetly, and she does. She wipes at her eyes and takes a shuddering breath. “I know.”

“But I get it now,” he tells her. “You didn’t want to resent them. You didn’t want to blame them for what we did. You wanted to carry that weight yourself, but you couldn’t do that right away. Maybe you still can’t, and I get that now. I get why you left.”

Clarke swallows down the growing lump in her throat and nods before turning to leave again. She just wants to get away, get back to Lexa; let this and all the world slip away for a while. She barely takes two steps before Bellamy calls out to her again.

“You and Lexa,” he says, and it isn’t a question.

“Yes,” Clarke says without turning, and though she holds her breath, she keeps her head held high even with her back to him.

She is shocked, though, when Bellamy only sighs and says, “I’m sorry for the way I acted about Echo. You were right. I should have—I know I should have trusted you. I should have trusted your instincts.”

“Clarke,” he says, and Clarke finally releases the breath she is holding and turns to face him again. His eyes are wet but sincere when they lock onto hers. “I _won’t_ make that mistake again.”

Clarke understands the full weight of what Bellamy is saying in that moment. He trusts her, _will_ trust her, even in loving Lexa. She can’t articulate what that means to her, so she just swallows down the lump in her throat and nods. They stand together in silence for a moment before Clarke blows upward at her wet eyes and motions toward the door. “You should talk to Echo.”

“I don’t think I can,” Bellamy replies weakly. “After what she did, I don’t think—”

“Things aren’t always what they seem,” Clarke says, cutting him off. She motions toward the door again. “You should talk to her, Bellamy. You two aren’t so different.”

Bellamy’s brow furrows but he nods anyway, and Clarke thinks their conversation is over, but when she turns to leave once more, he calls out to her again.

“You have them, too,” he says, and Clarke turns back. “The nightmares. You have them too.”

They hold each other’s gazes in silence for a long moment before Clarke lets out a soft sigh. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I do.”

She isn’t ready for the way her heart stutters, the way her skin crawls, when Bellamy quietly asks, “What if we’re ruined?” He uses the rough heels of his palms to wipe at his eyes before looking at her again. “What if all this, everything we’ve done … what if it has ruined us?”

The question feels like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind right out of her, but she sucks it in just as fast as it escapes and forces herself to remain steady, standing. “I don’t know,” she whispers, unable to lie to him here, now. “Maybe we just try to rebuild.”

It’s what they were made for, she thinks. They were the ones meant to rebuild the world after it was left in ruins. She just never thought that they, too, would be left in ruins in the process.

“Maybe we just have to try.”

* * *

Clarke nearly collides with Lexa at the junction near the room they are now sharing. The Commander is carrying a small tray of food and drink in one hand and a stick with a charred squirrel skewered on it in the other, and she stills when she and Clarke nearly bump together.

“That smells amazing,” Clarke groans, motioning for Lexa to go ahead toward their room. “Where’s Indra?” She glances quickly around but sees no one. “And Algor?”

“Eating outside,” Lexa tells her. “Indra insisted on watching your people.”

Clarke laughs. “You mean _you_ insisted on being alone for a while?”

“We should eat,” Lexa says, the corner of her mouth tilting slightly upward. She slips into the room with Clarke right behind her. “Did you speak with Raven?”

Clarke groans again, the sound evolving into a childish whine as she leans against the inside of the door. “No, I got caught up talking to Bellamy, and I forgot. I’ll go now.”

“Eat first,” Lexa says firmly, setting down the tray and skewer. She tears off a strip of meat from the squirrel before making her way back over to Clarke and holding the strip to her lips. Clarke thinks of that night in the woods, the night Lexa held food to her chapped and cracked lips and asked her to eat. Her heart swells in her chest, and she lets out a soft sigh as she takes the food from Lexa’s fingers with her teeth and places her hands on the Commander’s waist. She gives a gentle tug, pulling her closer, and Clarke _lives_ for the small smile that that single tug manages to bring to Lexa’s supple lips.

“Are you still going to be feeding me when we’re old and crippled?” Clarke jokes, and Lexa’s smile widens. She licks the residue from the meat off her fingers before sliding her hands up Clarke’s forearms. She rubs small circles around the points of her elbows and then trails higher, dusting over every inch and careful to avoid the bandaged portion of Clarke’s upper arm.

“I have faith that you will learn to feed yourself at some point, Clarke,” Lexa teases, smirking, but then she gives a gentle nod, swipes her thumb along the line of Clarke’s jaw, and adds, “or I can continue to do so if you like.”

Stomach flipping pleasantly, Clarke pulls Lexa even closer and sinks into her. “I’m ready to collapse,” she whispers against the Commander’s neck, wrapping her arms fully around her.

She feels Lexa relax into the embrace, her chin resting on top of Clarke’s head, and they remain that way in silence for several long moments. Clarke is certain that Lexa’s scent and warmth and steadily thudding heart are mere seconds from lulling her to sleep when Lexa clears her throat and quietly says, “Clarke, you cannot make promises as the one you made to Echo.”

“We needed her to talk,” Clarke mumbles against the material of Lexa’s top, “and besides, I didn’t make any promises.”

“You assured her she would be spared.”

Clarke sighs and pulls back enough to lock gazes with Lexa. “I told her that we _may_ spare her, not that we _would_.”

Lexa arches a brow in challenge. “So if my people call for execution, and I choose to exercise this punishment, you will stand by as it happens?”

Clarke’s stomach churns as she shifts from foot to foot. The thought of Echo being strung up, being cut and stabbed until she is dead, makes her insides squirm and scream. It doesn’t feel right. She clears her throat, preparing to answer, but when she parts her lips, no words come out, and Lexa nods knowingly.

“As I thought,” she says, and Clarke huffs out a hard breath as she leans back again and tilts her head against the door.

“Would you actually be okay with killing someone in her position?” she asks, fiddling with the loops of Lexa’s weapon belt to keep her hands busy, or maybe it is just to keep some part of her body in contact with Lexa’s. Clarke isn’t sure why, but it suddenly feels like every inch between them is a canyon, a crater, an expanse far too wide for her liking. “She has obviously been brainwashed by her queen, probably all her life. You heard her. How many times did she mention that the woman ‘sees all’? She was terrified of her, Lexa, maybe even more than she is of you, and on top of that, her brother is being held against her. It isn’t easy for people to separate themselves from their families or from the people they love. For most people, that’s where their truest loyalty lies. It’s just human nature, and this queen is obviously using it to her advantage.”

“Yes,” Lexa says with a nod. “She is.” Sighing, she pulls away and crosses the room to the food tray. She picks up some seeds and berries, likely the last of the year, Clarke thinks, and then tears off a few more strips of the squirrel before returning. She shakes her head as she deposits a strip into her mouth and quietly begins chewing as she presses another strip to Clarke’s lips, watching as Clarke takes it without question.

“I mean, yes, she committed treason,” Clarke continues once she finishes the bite, “but she was basically coerced into it. I’m not comfortable killing her for something she felt she had no choice but to do, and I don’t think you are either.”

“You are right,” Lexa quietly admits after a moment. She reaches for Clarke and pulls her slightly closer, just enough that their chests brush together, and she closes her eyes at the press.

Clarke wraps her arms around the Commander’s waist. She is thankful for the privacy of this room as she lets herself collapse against Lexa’s chest again, resting her head just over the quiet thudding of Lexa’s steady heart. They can be themselves in the quiet, in the unseen. They can be soft, _unsure_. They can be limited, afraid, answerless.

“I’m not saying she has to go unpunished, because she _did_ almost get you killed and several people _did_ actually die,” Clarke mutters, “but I don’t think she deserves to die for this, not when her circumstances are what they are.”

Resting her chin atop Clarke’s head again, Lexa runs her hands down Clarke’s back and whispers, “And if the information given was false?”

“Then we will deal with that if we have to,” Clarke says, pulling back so she can see Lexa’s face, “but I don’t think she was lying. Do you?”

Lexa is silent for a moment before giving a slight shake of her head. “No.”

“Okay.” Clarke leans up to press a soft kiss to Lexa’s lips, just a whisper of touch, barely there but still soothing and electric. She then pulls back, sighs as she pats Lexa’s side, and tilts her head toward the door. “I’m going to go talk to Raven. Save that food for when I get back. I’ll try to make it quick. I’m exhausted.”

“I will speak with Indra and Algor,” Lexa says. She then hesitates, lips parted like she has more to say, and Clarke can see the conflict in her eyes.

“What is it?” she asks, and Lexa sighs.

“What of your mother? If she dissents to any plan we—”

“She won’t.”

“How can you be certain?”

Clarke runs a hand over her hair before shaking her head and shrugging. “I know she wants to keep our people safe, and so does Kane. They aren’t always the best at it, but they _do_ try. I’ll get them to see reason.”

“And if they refuse?”

“They’ll fall in line,” Clarke says, voice sharp with promise, “one way or another.”

They hold each other’s gazes for a long moment before Lexa gives one final nod, and they both move to leave. Lexa steps around Clarke to pull the door open, but just as she is about to, Clarke clears her throat and says, “Lexa?”

Lexa turns, hand on the door, and Clarke pins her with a pointed stare while tapping her finger against the base of her throat.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about this enormous hickey you left on my neck.”

Lexa’s cheeks burn a soft pink despite the smirk that pulls at her lips, and Clarke just rolls her eyes before moving past her and out the door.

* * *

“I’m not sure how things will work out,” Clarke says, scratching at her braids and leaning against the table. She laughs tiredly. “Given the way things have gone since we’ve been on the ground, I can almost guarantee that they won’t work out how we plan, if we even manage to come up with a plan at all. Regardless, this might be a big help. You think you can do it?”

Raven pauses, her hand poised around her wrench, mid-torque, and arches a brow at Clarke. “Really?”

Laughing, Clarke shakes her head. “I don’t even know why I asked.”

“I might have to get Monty to help me out, though,” Raven says, and Clarke doesn’t miss the tired lilt of her voice, or the way she seems detached and distant. The room has felt cold since the moment Clarke walked in.

“Whatever you need to do.”

Raven nods. “I’ll get started on it first thing in the morning then.”

With a sigh, Clarke pushes off the table and makes her way toward the door. “I’ll stop by tomorrow then to see how it’s coming.”

“I think you’re in over your head, you know.”

Clarke pauses in the open doorway and turns back. “Maybe,” she says, nodding, “but the information Echo gave us is—”

“Not with that,” Raven says, tossing her wrench and the greasy towel hanging off her shoulder onto the tabletop. She steps around the table and braces herself against it, now fully facing Clarke. “With the Commander.”

Clarke’s stomach bottoms out at the words, and she braces herself. She knew this was coming. Even with Raven’s teasing and laughter, the look she had given Clarke in the medical bay had said it all. She doesn’t approve, and those little teasing remarks had been far from acceptance. “Raven ….”

“You know I support you, Clarke,” Raven says, crossing her arms over her chest like she is trying to comfort herself, “but this—you being with her. It isn’t right.” She doesn’t look at Clarke but keeps her eyes focused on the floor near Clarke’s feet, and Clarke can see all her hard angles in the harsh light of the station. Her jaw is rigid, her fists tight where they are pressed into her arms. She looks like she is on the defensive despite being the one launching the attack. “If it was just physical, then maybe I could get it, but I saw the way you two looked at each other, and I think you’re making a mistake.”

Clarke lets out a quiet sigh. “That’s not your call to make.”

“She’s _not_ a good person, Clarke,” Raven bites out, shaking her head.

The words cause a spark of anger to ignite in Clarke’s chest, and she clenches her fists, balls them up under her elbows as she, too, crosses her arms over her chest and tries her best not to lash out. “Look, Raven, I know you have your issues with Lexa, but—”

“Don’t,” Raven laughs, the sound hard and cold, almost mocking. Her eyes are sharp, fiery, when she finally looks up to meet Clarke’s gaze, and Clarke knows this isn’t going to be an easy conversation. “I’m trying to look out for you. I’m trying to be your friend, but you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to patronize me.”

“Raven, I’m not—”

“You don’t get to talk to me like I’m just having some petty little problem with her, like I’m being dramatic,” Raven says. “She didn’t steal my rations or dis me in front of my friends, Clarke. She strapped me to a post and had me tortured.” She spits the words like venom. “She was going to have me _killed_.”

“She thought you tried to poison her,” Clarke defends. “We’ve _all_ made mistakes, and she stopped as soon as she realized that she was wrong. She killed one of her own advisors, not to mention _friends_ , for the crime.”

Scoffing, Raven says, “She didn’t even _try_ to find out if I really did it or not before she strung me up, and even if she had, she’s still the type of person who _tortures_ people.”

Clarke’s fingernails cut into the flesh of her palms as she clenches her fists to the point of pain. She knows that Raven is grieving, Raven is lost, Raven is a mess, just like _she_ is a mess. She _knows_ this, so she holds herself together, but that doesn’t make this any easier. It doesn’t make it any easier to listen to someone she cares about bash Lexa. Still, Clarke takes a deep breath, forces herself to remain calm and collected, forces herself not to strike back.

Her voice comes out harder than intended, though, when she asks, “What about Lincoln?”

“What?” Raven arches a brow and waves a hand aimlessly through the air. “What _about_ Lincoln?”

“What about what we did to him?” Clarke asks. “What _you_ did to him.”

Raven falters for a second, jerking back like Clarke has just physically slapped her, before dropping her fists to her sides, licking her lips, and saying, “That was different.”

“How?” Clarke challenges. “How was it different? We tortured him, Raven.”

“Someone’s _life_ was on the line.”

“Lexa’s life could have been on the line, too,” Clarke argues, shaking her head as she swipes a hand down her face, rubs at her eyes. She is tired, so tired, and she can tell that Raven is, too. They shouldn’t be doing this now, here. One or both of them is too likely to come apart, or worse, explode.

“If you really _had_ poisoned the drink, then one swallow and she could have been dead. That’s what she thought,” Clarke says. “That’s what _she_ saw when she looked at you, just like when _you_ looked at Lincoln, all you saw was the person responsible for Finn dying, the person who could save him but who refused, so you grabbed those cables and you _electrocuted_ him. He could have died, Raven. We both know he could have, and I’m not saying it was only you. I was there, too. I told Bellamy to do it, to hit him, to beat him for information. We are _all_ responsible, and you don’t get to absolve us of that if you are still holding Lexa accountable for the same things.”

“She _left_ us to die,” Raven growls, completely jumping over Clarke’s defense and skipping straight to her next point of attack. Clarke doesn’t miss it, but she lets it go anyway. “She left us to die at the mountain.”

“And I left Finn and Bellamy to die at the drop ship,” Clarke counters, her eyes beginning to burn with rising tears as she sees Raven’s lip tremble despite her clenched jaw and hard eyes. Clarke can tell she is wound up, but more than that, she can tell that Raven is on the brink of a breakdown. She has been holding so much in for so long now, just like Clarke had been before walking away from Camp Jaha. It has to catch up at some point, she knows. There is no outrunning it. Grief demands to be felt.

“When we burned all those Grounders,” Clarke says, “I didn’t wait for them. I shut the door, and I gave the signal, and I left them out there to die, because I was trying to save our people, as many as I could. I left them out there. They could have died, but they didn’t. Lexa left us at the mountain, and we could have died, but we didn’t. She did what she thought was best to save as many of her people as possible. There isn’t a second that goes by that I don’t wish she hadn’t made that decision, but I can’t stand here and hate her for doing something that I’ve done myself, something that I _understand_.”

“Clarke, you—”

“Raven, _please_ ,” Clarke says, stepping toward the other girl who edges back, pressing harder into the table behind her. She is like a caged animal, and Clarke knows why. She can see the tears brimming in Raven’s eyes, pushing at the edges, can hear the cracks in her voice, and she knows what’s coming. Raven will rage against it. She isn’t one to break down. She isn’t one to fall apart, but Clarke knows it will happen, and she thinks maybe pushing through it sooner would be better than waiting for it to consume her.

“You’re tired. We’re both tired, and I know you’re angry. You have every right to be. You’ve lost a lot. We all have, but there isn’t a single thing you can pin on Lexa that you can’t also pin on me or on Bellamy or on Octavia or Jasper or Monty or _yourself_. We are all guilty of horrible things. You said so yourself. We’ve all done things, all of us, including Lexa, but—”

“It isn’t the same!” Raven shouts, slamming her fist hard against the metal table.

Clarke flinches at the echoing bang, but she doesn’t back off or back down. She only takes another step forward. “It _is_ ,” she says. “It _is_ the same, Raven.”

“She killed Finn!”

Clarke closes her eyes at the guttural break in Raven’s voice, the sob that chokes in her throat and pushes out like a broken melody across her lips. There it is. This is the root. This is what Clarke has been waiting for, and it is just as explosive as she feared it would be. Raven is wound so tight that Clarke can see the muscles in her neck straining, can practically hear her teeth grinding.

“She killed him!” Raven shouts again, her voice somehow like both fire and gravel combined—crackling, hard, hot. “That’s something that you can just _move past_? You can just forget about him?” She throws her arm out angrily like she wants to push Clarke away from her, but her hand doesn’t reach. She doesn’t touch, and Clarke wonders if it is deliberate. “You can just play house with the person who _killed him_?”

Clarke takes a deep, shaky breath, tries not to let the tears Raven is unsuccessfully fighting crawl inside her and pull all her pain to the surface. She fails.

“Lexa didn’t kill Finn,” she says weakly, voice trembling as she shakes her head and wipes at her eyes. “ _I_ did.”

“Yeah, because she made you,” Raven snaps back, swiping angrily at her damp cheeks. “She may as well have put that knife in his chest herself.”

“You’re wrong.” Clarke sighs and takes another step toward Raven. She is careful, slow, when she reaches toward the other girl, but Raven shrinks away from her touch.

“Don’t,” she bites out. “Don’t touch me. I can’t. Just don’t touch me, Clarke.”

Clarke gives a short nod and pulls her hand back, but she doesn’t move away. “It was my choice to do it,” she says quietly, “and I made that choice alone. Lexa didn’t make me do it, Raven, and if she hadn’t allowed me to say goodbye, then I wouldn’t have even been able to spare him any pain at all.”

“But she’s the reason you were there in the first place,” Raven argues, turning to put her back to Clarke. She braces her hands firmly on the metal table, and Clarke can see the muscles in her arms and shoulders flexing as she squeezes the surface. “She’s the reason you _had_ to do it.”

The breath she draws in is audibly shaken, stuttering through the air like it is unsure of where to go, and Raven clenches the table even harder. Her voice lacks the same conviction when she spits out her next words, more sob than stab, but they still sting. “You can dress it up all you want, Clarke, but that bitch is … she’s the reason he ….” She struggles for a moment, choking on her words, and Clarke feels her own tears slip over her chin and drip against the base of her neck as she waits. “ _She’s_ the reason.”

“You’re wrong,” Clarke croaks again. “Look, Raven, I know you don’t want to acknowledge this, and I get it, I _really_ do, but you need to hear what I am about to say.” She takes a deep breath and steels herself. “ _Finn_ is the reason that Finn is dead.”

Raven’s entire body stiffens, and when she turns to face Clarke again, her wet eyes are hard and glaring, but Clarke doesn’t falter. She spent too long bearing the guilt of Finn’s death or trying to cast it onto someone else, and she can’t do it anymore. This … it needs to be said.

“Not Lexa,” she continues. “Not the Grounders. Not even me. Yes, I’m the literal cause of his death, but I’m not the reason he was on that post to begin with. I had all this guilt inside me, Raven, and sometimes I felt like everyone else thought I deserved to feel guilty for what happened to him, like maybe even _you_ thought I did, but then I realized that that wasn’t something I needed to carry on my shoulders, because _I_ didn’t put him there. I didn’t put him on that post.”

“Yeah, _they_ did!”

“No, _he_ did!” Clarke yells, shocking herself with her own volume and the way her voice cracks and crumbles in her throat as soon as the words are out. It is surprising how good it feels to say those words, how good it feels when it still hurts so much. When she speaks again, her words are just ruins—leaves crunching beneath heavy boots. She shakes her head and lets out a ragged sigh. “None of us wanted to accept what he did, but the truth is that Finn was there because he slaughtered a village of people.”

“He never would have—” Tears track Raven’s cheeks as she clutches her stomach like she is trying not to double over. “He didn’t _know_ what he was doing. That wasn’t who he was!”

“We know better than anyone that being down here changes you,” Clarke says softly. “We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of, terrible things, but those people were unarmed, and he still gunned them down like animals. That’s what matters, Raven—that he did it. _He_ did it, and if we were still on the Ark, he would have been floated in a heartbeat. Even down here, if a Grounder walked into our camp and killed our people, we would want justice. We loved Finn, so we tried to act like they were being barbaric, wanting him dead, but we would have wanted the same. We would have demanded it, and you know it.”

She takes another slow step forward. “You lost the person you loved most in this world,” she whispers, “and you’re angry. You’re hurting, and you need someone to hate. You need someone to lash out at, someone to bear the brunt of your pain, because you can’t bear to feel it. I get it, Raven. I _do_ , but that person isn’t Lexa. She didn’t kill Finn.”

Taking a deep breath, Clarke lets it out in a whisper of a sigh and says, “He killed himself.”

Raven’s face contorts with the silent sobs that rip up from her chest, and she tries to cover it. She tries to hide it away, tries to hold in the sounds of her shattering insides. Clarke knows, because she feels it, too. She has felt it in so many different ways, and she feels it now, like Raven’s destruction is somehow echoing inside her own chest.

Clarke reaches for her. She expects to be pushed back, forced away, maybe even punched again, but this time, Raven lets her in. She lets Clarke touch her, just a brush of fingertips, and then she breaks.

When her legs give out as her first loud sob rips free, Clarke is there. She takes the brunt of Raven’s weight as they collapse to the floor, and Raven grips the front of Clarke’s shirt like it is the only thing tying her to the world anymore, and Clarke closes her eyes, silent tears slipping free as she braces her arms around her.

Sometimes, she thinks, even the strongest people fall.

* * *

Clarke lazily makes her way back to Lexa’s room, so tired she thinks she could sleepwalk her way there. She isn’t sure how long she sat on that floor with Raven, but her legs are aching and cold, and her back is sore like it must have been hours. They sat until Raven’s sobs turned into silence, and then they sat some more, and when they finally pushed themselves to their feet, Raven didn’t say a word. She just wiped her eyes and slinked away, left Clarke in that silence that seemed far too loud.

When she slips inside the room after a brief nod to Indra, it is already dark, and Clarke can make out Lexa’s outline in the bed across from her. She lets out a heavy sigh and is surprised when it pulls a fresh sob up from her throat, because she thought she had cried herself out. She thought every ounce had been ripped free, but then some pains are bottomless pits, and there is always more waiting further below. Clarke clamps a hand over her mouth to muffle it, but the sound has already ignited the silence of the room, and Lexa is off the bed and standing in front of her in seconds.

Her palms cup around Clarke’s cheeks. “What is it?” she whispers in the dark, and Clarke leans into her touch, lets her body shake with the weight of the day, with the weight of Raven’s grief and of Bellamy’s hopelessness, and of her mother’s fear.

“Everyone is broken,” Clarke says, her voice ragged, gone. She presses her hand to her chest as she clenches her eyes closed, new tears pushing to the edges and spilling down. “And I just walked away, Lexa.” She leans further into Lexa’s touch, reaches for her waist, pulls her closer; pulls her in. “I just left them, and they’re all so … they’re _suffering_. They’re broken, everyone—my mom, Raven, Bellamy, Jasper, Monty, Octavia, Lincoln—”

“You,” Lexa says quietly, and Clarke looks up at her, her wet eyes locking onto Lexa’s in the dark. She feels Lexa’s thumb press against her bottom lip gently before wiping through the tears on her cheek.

Clarke nods against Lexa’s palm, stutters out a heavy sigh, and whispers, “And you.”

When Lexa’s forehead presses to hers a moment later, Clarke lets out a quiet whimper. She braces her hand around Lexa’s neck and pulls her further in, nudges their noses gently together, before meeting her in a damp kiss. It is easy, comforting, languid, and Clarke thinks this might just be their only sanctuary, their only safe haven in a world that seems to only ever want to tear them down.

“We can’t do this,” Clarke whispers when they part, resting her forehead against Lexa’s again, “another war. We can’t. I don’t think we can take it. I don’t even know that we could survive it.”

“We may be unable to prevent it.”

Clarke slips her hand over one of Lexa’s, still braced against her cheek, and locks their fingers together. When she pulls it down to her chest and settles it over her aching heart, she hopes that the feeling of safety Lexa always provides will somehow sink in and stay.

“We have to find a way.”


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. Thank you all for the incredible continued support and love for this story. It means so much to me. I've finished out mapping the final chapters, and as you can see, the story is now set to finish with thirty-five chapters. It is going to be an intense ride to the finish, but hopefully one that you will all love. I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "Radium" by The Hit House. I hope you all enjoy it! XO-Chrmdpoet

The thin sheet is barely warm beside her, cooling rapidly with every passing second that it remains empty and exposed, and Clarke’s brow furrows in her sleep as she reaches out, her hand sliding over the empty space where Lexa should be. It is enough to pull her closer to consciousness but not quite fully awake before she feels slender fingers slide over the side of her face from behind. The touch draws a slight smile to her lips, and she is about to mumble something about Lexa coming back to bed when suddenly the hand slides fully over her mouth and presses down with a painful amount of force.

Eyes snapping open, Clarke blinks rapidly in the dark, trying to adjust and focus. She breathes hard through her nose, already panting as the hand squeezes her cheeks roughly, and a familiar voice suddenly hisses in her ear.

“Quiet, Sky Girl.”

Clarke’s eyes widen in the dark, and she turns just enough to see the outline of the woman at her bedside. A hard, loud hum rumbles in her throat at the sight, and the hand over her mouth presses down even harder so that Clarke’s teeth bite into the insides of her own lips, and she winces at the sting.

“Do not make me cut your tongue from your mouth.”

With a hard tug, Clarke is pulled by her arm to the edge of the bed before tumbling to the floor. When her bare back hits the floor with a painful thud, the hand around her mouth finally lets her free, and Clarke sucks in a sharp breath before whispering, “Where is Lexa?”

The only reply she receives is a single, raspy, clipped word. “Gone.”

“Gone?” Clarke croaks, the word catching in her throat. “What do you mean _‘_ gone’? Where the hell _is_ she?”

“Enough questions.”

Clarke feels another hard tug on her arm, and suddenly Echo is yanking her to her feet. “What are you doing?” Clarke asks, not bothering to try to cover any of her naked body in the dark.

“What I should have done sooner—fulfill my duty.”

“Echo,” Clarke pleads. “Whatever you’re planning on doing, you don’t have to. I meant what I said to you. We can protect you. We _will_.” Her vision has finally adjusted enough to take in the full appearance of the woman hovering over her, and Echo’s wide eyes are visibly glossy even in the dark. She doesn’t want to do this. Clarke can see it, so maybe there is a chance. Maybe there is a way to stop whatever is about to happen before it is too late. Her stomach bottoms out when she thinks that it might already _be_ too late.

Echo moves away from her for only a moment, and then the lights flicker on, and Clarke has to shield her eyes from the sudden brightness. The woman across from her doesn’t flinch at the sight of Clarke’s nude body, and Clarke, again, doesn’t try to cover herself. Lexa is missing, and Clarke doesn’t know if she is alive or dead, but she _does_ know that there is an armed woman across from her, and the last thing on her mind is modesty.

“Dress,” Echo demands, and Clarke feels the heat of fury flare in her chest.

“Oh, you’re actually going to grant me the decency of being covered before you drag me out of here?” she snaps, and she expects a reaction. She expects Echo to hiss at her or poke her with the sword in her hand or threaten her in some way.

Echo, instead, only gives her a firm nod and says, “Yes,” and Clarke wants to scream. She wants to cry. She wants to go back to sleep and wake up again to realize that this is only a stupid, shitty dream and Lexa is fine, and Lexa is warm and alive and _right beside her_. She hates the way her eyes water at the thought, at the hope that she knows is pointless.

When Clarke glances to the table in the center of the room, Echo takes a step toward her and says, “Your weapons have been removed.” She tilts the sword in her hand toward Clarke and adds, “Try nothing if you wish to live.”

Clarke’s gaze catches on the sword in Echo’s hand, and she chokes on the lump that forms in her throat when she recognizes it as Lexa’s sword. “What did you do to her?” She forces the words through her gritted teeth, and Echo’s gaze flicks to the sword in her own hand before meeting Clarke’s.

“Dress,” she says again, but Clarke refuses to move a muscle.

“Not until you tell me where Lexa is,” Clarke growls, and she can feel her body trembling, can feel every hair on her flesh standing at attention. “Is she alive?”

Echo is silent a long moment, and Clarke thinks she won’t answer, but then her head tilts forward in a single nod.

A sigh of relief rushes through Clarke’s lips, and she quickly moves to grab the clothing she had discarded on the floor before falling into bed with Lexa. As she pulls them on, she hardly takes her eyes off of Echo. “How did you get out?” Clarke asks. “Did you kill the guards?”

Echo doesn’t answer, and Clarke seethes.

“How did you get by Indra?” Clarke tries again, her voice hard and gruff like it is clawing its way up from some fiery hell inside her. “How did you pull the Commander from her bed in the middle of the night without a single sound being heard, without waking _me_? Who the hell is helping you?”

“Enough!” Echo snaps, and in two startlingly fast strides, she seizes Clarke in her hold, spinning her rapidly and pressing Clarke’s back against her chest, the sword against her throat.

Clarke stumbles with nearly every step as Echo shuffles her toward the door, but she doesn’t fight the Grounder’s hold on her. She knows it is pointless to even try. “We offered to spare you even after everything you did, and this is how you show gratitude?”

She hisses when Echo presses the blade tighter against her throat and whispers, “I do not have a choice.”

Clarke is about to argue, about to reassure Echo that she _does_ have a choice, that it isn’t too late to change her mind, that it isn’t too late to stop all this, but then the door is forced open, and the words on her tongue are quickly replaced with a hard, guttural sob.  

Blood is splattered across the wall, a spray that makes Clarke’s insides clench and turn, and she feels the bile shoot up her throat before she is able to stop it. When it floods her mouth, she chokes it back as hard and fast as she can, and she cringes at the bitter burn on her tongue and in her throat. She can’t bring herself to move her gaze any farther from the motionless booted feet on the floor, can’t bring herself to travel up strong legs, an armored chest, a face she has come to know too well. She can’t bring herself to look upon Indra like this—lifeless, _gone_.

“No,” Clarke shouts, her eyes stinging with tears. “No! Why did you do this? _How could you_ _do this_?” She strains against Echo’s hold, and the blade at her neck slices into her skin, just enough to draw blood and make Clarke gasp in pain.

“Clarke!”

Clarke struggles to turn toward the voice, and Echo shifts with her, moves them both further down the hall and around the corner, and then Clarke seems him. Bellamy is being held firmly in the grip of two very large men, both sporting fur-lined capes similar to Echo’s own. His face is beaten to hell, one eye so swollen that it has to be impossible for him to see out of it, and his nose is wrenched unnaturally to the right. Clarke can tell by the angle and by the blood still gushing down over his lips and chin, that his nose is broken.

“Bellamy,” she rasps, letting out a shuddering breath of relief at the knowledge that he is, at least, alive.

“Clarke,” he sobs, “I’m sorry.” His split lip trembles and he shakes his head back and forth. “I’m sorry.”

Clarke’s eyes widen, and her heart begins to pound even harder than before. “What did you do?”

“They have Octavia,” he says weakly. “I’m sorry. I had to. They have my sister.”

“It’s okay, Bellamy,” Clarke says, understanding. She knows there is nothing he wouldn’t do for his sister, to keep her safe. “Where is she? Where’s Octavia? Did you see Lexa?”

“I don’t know,” he says as they are both shoved forward through the Ark, stumbling over their own feet. “No. I don’t know.”

When Clarke sees another streak of blood along the tunnel wall, she closes her eyes and forces in sharp, fast, steadying breaths. “Where are you taking us?” she demands to know, but almost as soon as the words are out of her throat, she is jerked to a stop.

She opens her eyes long enough to see another body on the floor, but before she can make out who it is, a thick, scratchy material is yanked over her head and secured at the base of her neck.

And the world is black.

She can hear it still, hear Bellamy sniffing as he tries to stop the rush of blood from his nose. She can hear Echo’s harsh breathing so close to her ear; can hear their quick, heavy steps. She can smell the metallic tang of blood, and it makes nausea scream in her gut again. She can feel the floor beneath her feet; feel the blade still pushing against her neck. She can feel Echo’s chest rising and falling against her arm.

Somehow, the lack of vision makes everything else seem all the more intense, _louder_ and more terrifying, and Clarke feels like she might splinter apart at any moment. She can’t stop her mind racing to places she tries desperately, uselessly, to avoid—places where Lexa is hurt, hurting, _dead_ ; places where her mother or Raven or Octavia is being tortured for information that none of them can offer; places there is no coming back from.

Clarke knows when they stumble from the Ark, the cool night air rushing against the material of her clothing and seeping through to chill her flesh. It doesn’t smell as clean or as crisp as it should, and Clarke’s eyes burn and burn with tears that demand to fall when she realizes why. The night air is tainted by the scent of blood, and Clarke nearly hyperventilates beneath the bag covering her head, because she can’t stop herself from imagining the campground littered with bodies—bodies of people she grew up with, bodies of people she protected or who protected her, bodies of people she laughed with or mourned with; bodies of people she loves, _loved_.

How did this happen? How did everything fall apart so quickly when just yesterday, just _yesterday_ , they were fine? They were _fine._

Clarke burns with the word, the feeling, the fear.

She doesn’t know how long they stumble around in the dark, over crunching leaves and tree roots, but it feels like days—long, drawn-out days with a blade at her throat and her heart withering in her chest. It feels like they will never reach a destination, like they will be broken and wandering until their bodies give out.

When new sounds suddenly reach her ears, though, Clarke jolts and hisses when it results in a fresh, stinging cut through the already ragged flesh of her neck. The sounds quickly define—the crackling of a fire, the quiet murmur of voices, and the muffled sounds of terror.

Those are the sounds of her own people, she knows—the whimpers, the grunts of pain, the heavy panting. They are here, trapped here, _hurting_.

“Take this fucking bag off my head so I can see them!” Clarke growls out, and she hears a cold, gruff laugh cut through the air, and then a woman speaks.

“ _Breik em au_.”

As soon as the words are uttered, the bag is pulled from Clarke’s head, and she is released from Echo’s hold with a hard shove forward.

Clarke stumbles but manages to stay on her feet, and it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the glow of the fire, but once they do, she realizes that she is standing in the middle of a large open area inside what appears to be a cave. There is a fire crackling not fifteen feet from her, six or seven _Azgeda_ warriors lining the walls with Clarke’s people held to their chests and knives and swords pressed to their captives’ throats. Clarke feels a wave of dizziness roll through her body when she sees her mother, mouth gagged and eyes wide, pressed against a man’s chest with a blade clearly cutting her neck. Her blood trickles visibly down. She sways on her feet when she sees Raven in the same position; Monty, Octavia, Jasper, Kane, Algor.

But not Lexa. _Not_ Lexa.

Instead of finding comfort in the absence, Clarke finds her insides sinking even further with dread. Tears pull up to her eyelids, and she blinks rapidly to prevent them from falling. She needs to be strong now. She _needs_ to be a leader.

She hears Bellamy grunt and strain against the men holding him, and she knows he is trying to get to his sister.

“Stop,” she hisses, turning to look at him. “Stop fighting.”

“Wise,” says the same voice from before, and Clarke spins back around.

From a somewhat shadowed portion of the cave on the opposite side of the large opening emerges a tall figure, and Clarke knows who it is. She is lean, graceful in her stride, and she exudes an air of power that sends a ripple of fear down Clarke’s spine. Her body is clad in fur-lined armor and a cloak befitting royalty, but her face is covered.

A light blue veil hangs over her face, preventing Clarke from reading her expression, from seeing the sickly cruel smirk she imagines must be painting this woman’s lips.

“Clarke of the Sky People,” she says, and her voice is soft, quiet, but somehow still commanding, still intimidating; still terrifying.

“What the hell do you want?” Clarke snaps at her, forcing down her fear and her sorrow and her regrets. She focuses, instead, only on her rage.

“What is best for _both_ our people,” the woman replies, and Clarke nearly screams at her.

“You killing my people, beating them up and holding knives to their throats? That’s what’s best for _my_ people? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you only care about what’s best for you and _your_ people, and you’ll do anything to get it.”

“Your attention had to be gained,” the woman calmly explains. “Leverage was needed in order to earn your ear and begin a necessary discussion.”

“Where is Lexa?” Clarke snaps off. “We’re not discussing a damned thing until you tell me what you’ve done to her.”

“Ah yes.” The woman waves her hand in the direction of a warrior to her right, and he quickly slinks off, further into the dark of the cave. When he returns, his steps are heavy as his body is laden down with the extra weight of the person in his arms—Lexa. Clarke can see the blood on her face and limbs, the dark blooms of bruises along her visible flesh as she is covered by only a thin wrap of cloth.

He carelessly tosses her to the ground a few feet from Clarke, just to her left, and Lexa gives only a gentle grunt when she hits the hard stone. Her body slumps forward and her limbs sprawl out around her, loose and limp like those of an old rag doll. The sight makes Clarke’s stomach turn, makes her heart pound with the ferocity of an animal raging against the confines of a cage. Every cell in her body is screaming; a desperate plea, a love confession, a war cry, a vow of retribution.

Clarke moves before she even realizes what she is doing, her body jerking her toward Lexa as if by instinct, but she barely takes two steps before the veiled woman clucks her tongue and holds up a hand.

“We have much to discuss,” she says, and Clarke grits her teeth but stills in place.

“What the hell do you want?” she growls again, and the woman takes several quick strides toward her.

“An alliance,” she says, stepping well into Clarke’s personal space so that Clarke can _just_ make out the outline of her features through the blue veil.

Clarke huffs out a hard breath and asks, “To what end?”

“Hers,” the woman hisses, pointing toward Lexa’s beaten form, “and that of her militia.”

Taking one single step forward, Clarke practically sucks in the Ice Queen’s next breath before she says, “ _Never_.”

“This is what is best for our people,” the woman whispers so quietly that Clarke is sure only she can hear, “and for yours. With her death comes the dawn of a new era, one in which our people can be free of her treachery, her weakness, and her tyranny. We _must_ be united.”

Clarke’s blood boils. Her eyes water. She shifts back enough to be able to glance down to the woman on the ground, battered and barely breathing but beautiful, and Clarke aches for her. She aches for Lexa to open her eyes, to stand up, to tell her what to do, to help her; to _fix this_. She aches for Lexa’s wisdom, Lexa’s ferocity. She aches for Lexa.

“You understand,” the Ice Queen whispers, but when Clarke turns back to face her, the veil is gone, and it is Lexa’s face staring back at her.

It is Lexa’s voice that spills through supple lips, urging her. “We _must_ be united,” she says, “if we are to win this. We _must_ be united, Clarke.”

Clarke’s breath grows shallow and rapid as she shakes her head, trying to understand what she is seeing, and Lexa continues to whisper to her, repeating her name over and over and over again like a mantra.

“Clarke.”

“We must be united, Clarke.”

“ _Clarke_.”

“Lexa?” Clarke mumbles, and everything feels hazy around her. The cave blurs, and Lexa’s face disappears. Her people fade to black, and Clarke thinks she is losing her mind.

“ _Clarke!_ ”

Clarke jolts awake with a hard gasp, jerking up so hard and so fast at the sound of Lexa’s voice and the feel of Lexa’s hands gripping her face that their foreheads slam together, and they both reel back at the impact. Clarke recovers quickly, though, reaching for Lexa even as the throb of pain still pulses in her forehead and echoes like an alarm through her skull.

A quiet sob tears free from her throat as she cups her hands around Lexa’s face. “Lexa,” she cries, and Lexa wraps her up quickly, squeezing her close and tight.

“I am here, Clarke.”

“You were there,” Clarke mutters against the flesh of Lexa’s neck, “on the ground, on the ground and bleeding, and she … she was, and then _you,_ you were her.”

“Clarke,” Lexa says softly, rubbing one hand slowly up and down Clarke’s bare back and gently scratching at Clarke’s scalp with the other, “it was only a dream. Breathe. It was only a dream.”

“Oh God,” Clarke chokes out, gripping Lexa as tightly as possible. She knows it has to be uncomfortable for the other girl, but she can’t help herself. She needs to feel her, needs to hold on, needs to never let go. “It felt so real. I can still see it in my head. I can still smell the blood and see your body on the ground, and Indra … Lexa, she was dead. She was _dead_.”

“Indra is well, Clarke,” Lexa whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to Clarke’s shoulder. “ _I_ am well. Feel me.”

Clarke closes her eyes and runs her hands down Lexa’s naked back, feels every inch before sliding up over her shoulders. When she pushes back, she opens her eyes and locks gazes with Lexa in the dark of their room. She runs her hands over Lexa’s bare chest, down the lengths of her arms, and presses the pads of her fingers into each of Lexa’s.

When her body begins to relax and cave, Lexa reaches up and wipes tears from Clarke’s cheeks. She hadn’t even realized she was crying, but she leans into Lexa’s touch and allows the gentle cleansing as if it can somehow clear away the images from her mind. She knows better.

“You see?” Lexa whispers. “I am here, and I am whole.”

Her breath rushes from her body as Clarke collapses into Lexa, slips her hand around the back of Lexa’s neck and pulls their naked chests flush together. Her lips hover over Lexa’s in a silent plea that she then puts to voice. “Kiss me,” she whispers into the dark. “Kiss me.”

And Lexa does.

She kisses Clarke like it is their first, like it is their last, like it is every breath and beat keeping her body alive and thriving. She kisses Clarke like she is fragile and like she is invincible, pressing in as if she intends to brand a print of her lips atop Clarke’s own but holding her as if Clarke might crumble in her arms and drift away like dust on the wind. Clarke wants to sink into it, drown in it, and never come up for air, because _every_ kiss should be like this—a reminder of why life is so, _so_ worth living.

A loud knock on their door jars them from the moment, and Clarke lets out a heavy sigh against Lexa’s lips.

“ _Bants, Indra!_ ” Lexa calls out, and Clarke releases a raspy chuckle against the Commander’s cheek before pressing a soft kiss there. At the sound of her laughter, Lexa pulls back just a bit and smiles at Clarke. “You are learning fast, Clarke.”

“A few phrases and words here and there,” Clarke tells her but smiles just the same. It feels good, the upward tug of her lips. It feels like coming back to a better reality, a safer one, and her heart still stutters in her chest, but it is rapidly calming.

That is, until a voice comes through the door, and Clarke feels her pulse spike again. “Sorry, Commander. It’s Octavia.” An awkward silence develops for a moment before she continues. “Um, I know Clarke is in there, so Clarke?”

Lexa groans and presses her forehead to Clarke’s chest as Clarke shifts in her lap and wraps her legs around Lexa’s waist so that they are both more comfortable. She runs her hand through Lexa’s hair as she calls, “What is it, Octavia?”

“There are people at the gate for you,” Octavia answers through the door. Clarke can practically feel the weight of Octavia’s hesitation pushing through the barrier between them before she hears the one word that causes her stomach to bottom out, causes Lexa to stiffen against her.

“ _Azgeda_.”

* * *

Clarke makes her way out to the gate with Lexa right beside her, stiff and on high alert, and Octavia and Indra follow closely behind them. She is surprised to step outside and find that it is early morning, having thought it to still be the middle of the night. Her body hasn’t yet adjusted to reality, the vivid images of her haunting dream still plaguing her mind.

She can see the two _Azgeda_ warriors waiting on the other side of the gate, both on foot and clad in leather armor with fur linings and the symbol of their clan marked across their chests. They stand like solid statues, as frozen as their gazes, which remain fixed through the gate upon Clarke.

Stopping several feet from the gate, Clarke shakes her head to make sure that the kids manning the gate don’t move to open it. It remains firmly latched as Clarke meets the gazes of each warrior in turn and asks, “Why have you come here?”

“Our _kwin_ requests a meeting with the Sky _Heda_ ,” the warrior on the left says, and Clarke feels Lexa bristle next to her. The Commander straightens further, elongating her body so that she is somehow taller and even more imposing.

“For what purpose?” Lexa demands to know, and the _Azgeda_ warrior does not meet her gaze.

He keeps his eyes on Clarke as he says, “It is not our place to question our _kwin_.”

“Your _kwin_ is not your _Heda_ ,” Lexa hisses, just as she had to Echo in the stockade. She steps toward the gate, staring the two men down. “It is your duty to answer to _me_.”

The two warriors remain silent, gazes fixed on Clarke, and Clarke can tell that Lexa is itching to run them both through with her sword. So, she steps forward as well and hopes the slight press of her shoulder against Lexa’s will be enough to soothe and calm her.

“Where does she want to meet?” Clarke asks, and the warrior on the left presses a fist to his chest.

“We will take you.”

“I can take myself,” Clarke says, “and a few of my own people.”

“The _kwin_ bids you come alone.”

“Now, see,” Clarke says, crossing her arms over her chest and shaking her head, “that sounds like a trap.”

“The _kwin_ seeks only a discussion,” the warrior replies, tilting his head forward in what Clarke guesses is a show of respect.

“But only with me and no one else,” Clarke says, and she isn’t asking, but the warrior nods anyway. She takes a deep breath before stepping back.

“Stay here,” she commands. “I need to speak with my people first. I will return in an hour.”

She expects one or both of the warriors to argue, to bid her to leave with them right away, but they merely give her two firm nods, and step back from the gate to wait.

Clarke quickly turns on her heel to head back toward the Ark, Lexa at her arm again and Octavia and Indra following along behind them. As soon as they step inside the massive metal structure, Lexa wraps her hand around Clarke’s wrist and gives a gentle squeeze.

“A word, Clarke,” she says. “Alone.”

Clarke lets out a quiet sigh, because she knows she is going to have to fight Lexa on this, and motions toward the nearest door. It’s a supply room, small and empty but for a few random items, and as soon as the door is closed, Lexa rounds on her.

“You _will not_ go alone,” she practically growls, and Clarke knows the ferocity in her voice is more worry than anything. Still, it pricks at her.

“What else do you suggest?” Clarke asks, crossing her arms over her chest again and arching a brow. “We need to figure out what _exactly_ this woman wants and how she intends to achieve it now that her first plan failed, because otherwise, any plans we make are just shots in the dark, Lexa. She wants to talk to _me_ , so I’m going to go.”

“No,” Lexa says again, and her voice is still hard but her eyes are pleading. “Clarke, listen to me.”

“I _know_ , Lexa,” Clarke says, dropping her arms and stepping closer. She slips her hand into Lexa’s. “I know you’re worried, but I’ll be okay. I’ll take my gun. I’ll take your daggers. I won’t do anything stupid. I know how to take care of myself.”

“I know you do,” Lexa replies, tone sincere, doubtless. Her eyes, though, go glossy in a matter of seconds as she swallows thickly and grows quiet. She clenches her jaw, fights off tears that Clarke knows will never meet the surfaces of her cheeks, and then she whispers, “This woman takes pleasure in cruelty, Clarke, and she knows to harm me, she has only to harm _you_.”

“I know,” Clarke whispers. She tries not to think about Costia, about how shattered Lexa must have been; about how long it must have taken to even begin to attempt to piece herself back together in the aftermath. She tries not to think about how that trauma must still be so fresh in Lexa’s mind, how it must be playing like a looping reel behind her eyes in this very moment. She tries, but she fails. Clarke squeezes Lexa’s hand and steps even closer so that their armored chests brush together, and her voice sounds as gutted as she feels when she murmurs, “But she won’t.”

“How can you know?”

“Because right now, she needs me,” Clarke tells her, “and as long as she needs me, she won’t lay a finger on me.”

She thinks, for only a moment, that Lexa is going to cave, that she is going to agree and allow this meeting to happen. Lexa, though, only crumbles for a moment before hardening again and shaking her head. “I will go with you.”

“You can’t,” Clarke says. “Lexa, you _can’t_. You know you can’t.”

“Then Algor.”

“No.” Clarke shakes her head. “I don’t want him risking his life for me again. He’s still healing from the last time he did that.”

“Octavia then,” Lexa says, “and Lincoln. They will follow you from the trees.”

“I thought Lincoln was a traitor to your people,” Clarke replies. “Now you want to send him on a mission?”

Lexa remains firm, unwavering, as she repeats, “They will follow you from the trees.”

“Without getting caught?”

Lexa gives a firm nod, and Clarke lets out a hard sigh. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. If it will get you to agree, then yes. They can follow.”

When Lexa nods again, Clarke returns the gesture. “But first,” she says, “we need to talk to my mom.”

“Why?”

“Because I have an idea,” Clarke explains, thoughts of her dream still swirling around in her mind, “and I think it could work.”

Lexa’s brow arches as she tilts her head. “Tell me.”

* * *

“I don’t like this, Clarke,” Abby says, shaking her head. “I don’t like the thought of you doing this alone.”

“It’s the only way she will meet with me,” Clarke replies, “and I won’t be _entirely_ alone. Lincoln and Octavia will trail me when I leave, so if anything goes wrong …”

“See,” Abby interjects, “that’s the part that scares me.”

“Something could _always_ go wrong, Mom,” Clarke says. “You know that.”

Abby swipes a hand through her hair and leans on her elbow on the round table they are seated at—she, Clarke, Lexa, and Kane.

“And you don’t have any idea what she wants?” Kane cuts in, leaning forward on the table as well.

“War,” Lexa says at the same time that Clarke says, “An alliance.”

“War or an alliance? Which is it?”

“An alliance to aid in a war,” Clarke clarifies, and both Abby and Kane let out sighs that sound like they have wrenched their way up from depths both dark and dated. “But I think we can prevent it.”

“The war?" Kane asks, and Clarke nods.

“Our people must come together,” Lexa says from Clarke’s right, having already been filled in on Clarke’s plan. They had remained in that supply closet for nearly ten full minutes hashing it out the best they could in such a limited amount of time. Still, it feels solid to Clarke, _steady_ , like a sudden spark of hope in her chest that refuses to do anything but grow into flame.

“ _Another_ alliance?” Abby asks, brows shooting toward her hairline.

The expression is mirrored on Kane’s face when he says, “There is no way our people would support another alliance after what happened at Mount Weather. They would riot if we even suggested it.”

“I know,” Clarke says, and she glances to Lexa who gives her a firm, encouraging nod, “but we aren’t talking about another alliance.”

Lexa straightens in her chair and meets first Kane’s gaze and then Abby’s. Her voice is strong, determined, _resolved_ when she says, “We are proposing a union.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Breik em au." - "Free her."
> 
> "Bants, Indra!" - "Leave, Indra!"


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone, for your continued support. It means so much to me!
> 
> I wrote this chapter to A Perfect Circle's cover of "Imagine"; specifically that cover. I hope you will give it a shot, and I hope you enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

"A union," Abby repeats, glancing back and forth between Lexa and Clarke. Her voice is unsure, doubtful, and while Clarke understands that, she hopes she can convince her mother to trust her on this.

"The Ice Queen has wanted to overthrow Lexa and take control of the clans since before Lexa even formed the coalition," Clarke explains, "but she hasn't had the power to do so. She has numbers, the biggest clan of the twelve, but those numbers still aren't enough because the other clans are loyal to Lexa and will rally behind her. But right now, _we_ are neutral, and she knows that we have a reason to hold a grudge against Lexa and her people."

"You felled the mountain," Lexa says, chiming in, "a feat my people were unable to accomplish for decades. This alone would make the clans respect you. Some may even fear you. The power you possess will lend to that."

"Right," Clarke says, nodding again. "Our technology. Lexa's people don't have the technology that we do, or the knowledge to wield it. If we chose to, we could take over Mount Weather and use their weapons, and that is a power that rests solely with us. We could reactivate the acid fog, drop a bomb on any one of the clans' villages if we wanted to, and that's the kind of power _she_ wants. That's the kind of threat she wants to have behind her, because with _that_ kind of threat and her numbers and ours combined, the clans will sway; maybe not all of them, but enough of them that we would have another war on our hands."

"A war which would result in the loss of _thousands_ ," Lexa tells them, and Clarke nods in agreement.

"And a war that none of us are ready for," she adds, looking to her mother. "We barely made it out of the mountain. Our people need time to heal."

"To tilt the scales in our favor," Lexa says, "we must unite our people. If we can firmly remove the Sky People as an option for her gain, the Ice Nation's queen will retreat from her plan. She will return to biding her time, waiting for a new opportunity to seize."

"Okay," Abby begins, brow furrowing in confusion, "but how exactly is a union any different from the alliance we had before?"

"It's secure," Clarke tells her. "Set in stone. The alliance was more like a truce, but a union would be like a contract."

"What sort of contract?" Kane asks, and Lexa draws a dagger from her belt.

Laying the weapon on the table, she says, "One sealed in blood."

" _Secure_ ," Clarke repeats as both Abby and Kane stare at the dagger warily.

"The Sky People will become part of the coalition," Lexa tells them, relaxing a bit into her chair as Clarke shifts closer to her. "The thirteenth clan."

Clarke doesn't even realize how much she has shifted toward Lexa until her chair wobbles with one particularly swift shift, and her shoulder brushes against the Commander's. She does her best to ignore her mother's half-annoyed, half-amused expression in response, and quickly clears her throat to continue explaining the plan. "If we enter into the coalition, then we will be _more than_ allied with Lexa's people," she says. "We will be a _part_ of her people, like a merger, and that means that we will have her full, unwavering loyalty, guaranteed, as well as all the benefits of the other twelve clans."

"Which include?" Abby asks, and Clarke glances to Lexa, who takes it as her cue to answer, as if this is a routine they have rehearsed for hours despite only having discussed it minutes ago.

"Protection," Lexa informs with a nod. "Training, should your people desire it."

Kane arches a brow and asks, "In combat?"

Lexa nods again, and Clarke jumps back in. "And hunting and fishing," she adds, a spark of thrill flickering in her chest. The more they discuss it, the firmer she feels about it, the more she believes this can work; the more she wants it, not only for herself, but for her people, and for Lexa's. "Horseback riding, farming, blacksmithing; whatever anyone is interested in. In turn, we can teach them about some of our ways, too. Our medicine and medical procedures can help them so much, and they can help us to become a real, _thriving_ community, instead of a group of people just trying to survive however possible."

Reaching across the table, Clarke places her hand atop one of her mother's. "They can give us stability and resources, Mom. The things we can learn from them are invaluable."

"As part of the coalition, your people would also be granted travel and access to our villages as well as open access to trade with the other clans," Lexa says. "You may trade in food, clothing, seed, water, wood, metals, crafts, and weaponry. Trade allows us to share our resources and sustain one another throughout difficult times."

"And the other clans would agree to this?" Kane asks, and Clarke can tell by his voice that his interest has been sparked.

"I am certain of this," Lexa assures. "The Sky People earned great respect through felling the mountain."

"And for curing the Reapers," Clarke adds, and Lexa nods.

"You have afforded us freedom from a powerful enemy, and my people are grateful."

"It's true," Clarke says, nodding. "I've seen it. When I was in Polis, the people there … they thanked me. They gave me gifts. They didn't look at me like I was an enemy."

Clarke doesn't miss the small smile that pulls at Lexa's lips before the Commander's expression snaps back to serious, and she says, "They also fear what could be if the Sky People launch an attack. A union will calm this fear. There may be some who dissent, but they will come to accept this union. Anyone who attempts to stop it will pay with their life."

The room grows quiet for a moment, the sincerity in Lexa's tone ripening the air, until Kane clears his throat and says, "It sounds perfect. Stability is what we need right now, and the skills we can learn from your people are, as Clarke said, invaluable; however, were we to agree to this union, we would be agreeing to live under _your_ command, would we not?"

Clarke braces herself. This is the part she was most concerned about, because even with it being the best option, she knows her people will struggle with relinquishing power; transitioning into a new way of life, a new form of government. Clarke thinks, though, that those struggles are well worth it, and they are far preferable to the struggles they might otherwise face.

Lexa doesn't answer with words, giving only a single, swift nod, and Clarke quickly clears her throat and speaks. "I think we've all realized that the way things ran on the Ark wasn't really working. A change could do us good, _great_ even. We need this, and yes, we will technically be under Lexa's command, but we will still be our own people. We'll still have all the same rights and freedoms that the other clans have, which means we can still have our own leader, our own ways of operating on a day-to-day basis, our own beliefs, our own land, and our own homes. We could even have our own language if we wanted to, and look at all we can _gain_."

"And our only alternatives would be to remain neutral," Abby says, "or to ally with this Ice Nation."

Clarke nods. "We would likely still be dragged into a war if we remained neutral. Not only would we probably lose a lot of our people, but we would have to continue like this, as we have been—just barely surviving; that is, if we survive it at all."

"You have nothing to gain from an alliance with the _Azgeda_ ," Lexa adds then, and Clarke quickly agrees.

"The Ice Nation is already part of the coalition, which is, as we've said, a contract," Clarke tells them, "and the queen is actively trying to break it. Plus, we know the kind of person she is. She tortures people for fun, threatens innocent lives for leverage. She kidnapped Echo's brother and is holding him hostage in order to get Echo to do her bidding. Her plan to even begin an alliance with us was to kill Lexa and set us up to make it look like _we_ killed her in order to incite a war, so what does that tell you? That's not someone we want to align ourselves with."

"Mom," Clarke says, shifting closer to her mother and grabbing her hand again. "Please, trust me on this." She glances to Kane and then back to Abby. "You didn't trust me before. You didn't listen to me, and look what happened. People died. Lexa almost died, and she is the only one who can help us right now, and we can help her. This is the best option. Please, trust me."

"Abby," Kane utters quietly. "Can we speak privately?"

Abby nods, and she and Kane rise from the table together. Crossing the room, they huddle in a corner and begin murmuring quietly to one another, and Clarke can't hold in the sigh pulling up from her chest.

Pressing her face into her hands, she leans toward Lexa, seeking the comfort of her body, of her warmth. "We need this union," she whispers, and she is surprised when Lexa's hand slides over her thigh and squeezes.

Of course, it is an action hidden from sight, but Clarke didn't expect Lexa to ever be one to show physical affection in a public space. It would show vulnerability, but then Lexa's own words ring in her ears. _This is not weakness_.

"What will be will be," Lexa murmurs, her voice resolute.

Clarke grins as she turns her face in her hands, resting her cheek against her palms so she can look at the Commander. "That isn't helpful at all, you know."

A hint of a smile ghosts over Lexa's lips. "I know my wisdom comforts you, Clarke," she says, and Clarke lets loose a quiet, raspy laugh.

Sliding her own hand over Lexa's, Clarke squeezes her fingers and whispers, "This is our chance to start fresh, to have a _life_. Our people can work together. They can be happy, and you and I … _we_ can have a chance. This is our chance, Lexa."

The words dig down deep, burrow in and take hold with a fierce grip and an even fiercer hope. Clarke wants this more than she can say. This union is their chance, their only chance; their _best_ chance. It will not only save their people, but it will save _them_. She and Lexa won't be at odds. They won't be pitted against one another, or torn apart by their duties and responsibilities. Neither will be forced to choose their people over the other, because Clarke's people will _be_ Lexa's people, and Lexa's people will be Clarke's. They can have stability, peace, trust. They can have each other without restraint, without this ardent worry gnawing at all the places they are bound, constantly threatening to rip them apart.

This is their chance to be together, and Clarke is determined to seize it.

Lexa is quiet a long moment, her gaze boring into Clarke's like she wants to bury herself in the blue, and Clarke holds it. She doesn't let it waver or fall, her eyes locked on Lexa's and their fingers laced together, and then Lexa squeezes her hand and whispers, "Our chance."

On her lips, painted in Lexa's sad, lovely voice, the quiet expression somehow sounds immense. It sounds like a prayer, cried out in echoes between outstretched arms. It sounds like a war drum, beating them toward revolution. It sounds like need and desire, hope and demand and determination.

Clarke nods, her heart fluttering in her chest. "Our chance."

When Abby and Kane return to the table a moment later, Clarke's gaze is torn from Lexa's and her heart's fluttering kicks into a harder rhythm. Lexa's hand never leaves her thigh under the table, and Clarke is thankful for the comfort and security the touch offers. Her mother's eyes are unreadable, and Clarke can't help but to worry about the words that might spill through her lips any moment now. All the variations of 'no' haunt her even without voice.

"So," Abby says, and she surprises Clarke by reaching across the table and holding open her hand. Clarke hesitates for only a moment before sliding her own hand across to meet it. When they lock together, Abby rubs her thumb gently over Clarke's knuckles. "How do we do this?"

A smile breaks over Clarke's lips as relief rolls through her, a refreshing wave flooding her insides. "Thank you," she says, pushing out of her chair to get to her mother. She wraps her arms around her before Abby can even stand to properly return the embrace. " _Thank you_."

When they settle back into their seats, Lexa's hand finds its way to Clarke's thigh again, and Clarke's grin widens at the gentle squeeze. _What will be will be._

"You said the union would be made in blood," Kane says, pulling their attentions back to the matter at hand.

"Yes." Lexa nods. "A formal ceremony must take place, one we will hold in Polis. It is our capital. The leaders of the other clans will be present, and a sacrifice of blood is required, an oath."

"A blood oath," Kane says. "Who will make it?"

Clarke puts her hand on the table as if casting a vote. "I will."

"As well as each leader of the twelve clans," Lexa tells them, before looking to Clarke, "and I."

Lexa and Clarke hash out the terms of the union with Abby and Kane, as well as their plan for Clarke's meeting with the Ice Queen. Once they are finished, Clarke spends several long moments hugging her mother, who makes her promise over and over to be safe, before they take their leave.

When they step from the room, Clarke quietly says, "She has to die." She and Lexa have already discussed this, already determined as much. They have already set a plan, but Clarke can't help herself. She has to say the words aloud, has to remind herself that this is the way. This is the only way.

Lexa arches a brow but merely nods, and Clarke sighs.

"It's the only way to put an end to this for good. Otherwise, she will just bide her time like you said, wait for another opportunity to attack." She says it like she is trying to convince Lexa, but she knows she doesn't have to. She is convincing herself. She keeps thinking of the bodies in Mount Weather.

 _It isn't the same_ , she tells herself. _She isn't innocent._

"She will not agree to an oath," Lexa tells her, doing her best to further reassure her, and Clarke could kiss her for it. She lets Lexa's words sink in. She knows she is right. The Ice Queen would never hammer the nail into her own coffin. "The oath must be freely taken by all clan leaders in order for the union to take place."

"We're going to have to bluff to stall for time," Clarke says as they make their way toward the stockade, and Lexa nods again.

"It is the only way."

Clarke takes a deep breath as they round a corner before saying, "And then she dies."

"I cannot take her life," Lexa murmurs, "without proof of treason. The clan leaders would riot."

"I know," Clarke says, letting out her breath in a staggered sigh. "I know."

* * *

The stockade is darker than usual when they enter, a few of the lights having finally flickered to their deaths, and Echo is sitting in the far corner of the room, her back to the wall and her arms resting on her knees. She rises slowly to her feet when Clarke and Lexa step toward her, her hands loose and open to show that she is not a threat.

"Has something happened?" she asks, and Clarke nods.

"I am going to meet with your queen."

Brow arching, Echo asks, "With what protection?"

"None," Clarke tells her, glancing briefly to Lexa, whose jaw clenches at the single word. "She will only meet with me if I go alone, so that's what I'm going to do."

"This is unwise."

"Don't worry about it," Clarke tells her, brushing off the words. Her nerves are already buzzing despite firmly believing in their plan. "I've got it covered. We're here because we need to know if we can trust you."

"With what?"

"In general," Clarke says. "We need to know whose side you're on."

"If a battle ensues," Lexa says, her hands resting easily atop the handle of the sword latched to her hip, "with whom will you stand? _Yu kwin o ai?_ "

Echo is motionless for a moment, silent, but then in two long strides, she is nearly chest to chest with Lexa. Clarke braces herself, her hand shooting to her side where her gun is holstered, but Lexa doesn't waver. She doesn't flinch. She doesn't move a muscle. She is perfectly calm and merely stares Echo down, almost as if she is daring her to try something, _anything_.

Holding Lexa's gaze, Echo slowly lowers to the ground. She drops to a single knee in front of the Commander before bowing her head. "I will fight with you," she says, and Clarke doesn’t know why but she feels her eyes sting with tears when Lexa slowly reaches out and places her hand gently atop Echo's head. She holds it there for a moment before letting go, and Echo slowly rises to her feet again.

"So, you will help us?"

Echo turns to Clarke at the question. When she nods, Clarke lets out a breath of relief. "Good," she says, "because we need you."

* * *

When Clarke walks into Raven's station, she finds Raven and Monty both hunkered over a large device that looks to be formed from various parts not necessarily meant to go together. Raven tinkers with the device while Monty snaps something into place on a much smaller device before looking up and smiling at Raven.

"Fixed," he says. "It's good."

Raven nods and claps her hand down on the table. "Good to go on this one, too."

"I hope you're talking about what I think you're talking about," Clarke says, stepping more fully into the room.

Both Monty and Raven glance up at the sound of her voice, and Monty offers her a wide smile.

"I'm not _all_ boom, you know," Raven teases, tossing her hand towel across the room at Clarke. "I told you I could do it." When Monty nudges her side with his elbow, she clears her throat and grins. "I mean, I told you _we_ could do it."

Letting out a soft laugh, Clarke says, "I never doubted either of you."

The room gets quiet for a moment, the three of them just smiling at one another before Raven clears her throat again and says, "We heard you were going to meet with some Grounder queen."

"Heard about that already, huh?" Clarke replies, letting out a sigh and scratching at the back of her neck.

"The kids at the gate have big mouths," Monty says, and they all laugh, but Clarke can hear how hollow it is. There isn't any real amusement in the sound. It is too tainted with concern.

Raven grabs a set of crutches that are leaning against the wall behind her and uses them to help her move around the table and closer to Clarke. She isn't wearing her brace, and Clarke figures she must have needed a break from it. Maybe her leg is hurting. When Raven reaches her, she leans the crutches and her back against the nearest table and motions for Clarke to take the spot next to her. The motion doesn't come with a verbal offer; in fact, Raven doesn't say anything at all, but Clarke can see it for what it is—Raven's silent way of asking if they are okay.

Clarke nods before stepping into the space beside her and leaning against the table. When their shoulders press together, Raven releases an obviously relieved sigh and asks, "You sure that's a good idea?"

"I think it's something that I need to do," Clarke says. "We need to know where her head is at right now; besides, if the plan is going to work, then it's something I _have_ to do. It's the only way."

"Speaking of the plan," Monty says, cutting in, "are you going to tell us what it actually _is_?" He smiles at Clarke when she rolls her eyes. "I'm guessing we're involved in it?"

"You are."

* * *

"Everyone who needs to know has been informed of the plan," Clarke says as they move toward the exit, "so it's time."

Clarke is unsurprised when Lexa pulls her aside at the last minute, just before they can exit the Ark to meet the _Azgeda_ warriors at the gate. She lets Lexa hold her back, tries not to get lost in the gloss coating green eyes even as the Commander locks her jaw and stands stiff as a board.

Lincoln, Octavia, Indra, and Algor, who are following, step aside to give them space, and Lexa lowers her voice to a whisper. "Clarke," she says, "I must ask you to reconsider."

"I know," Clarke whispers. "I know you have to ask, just like _you_ know that I have to go."

Lexa doesn't say anything, merely sucks in sharp, shallow breaths through her nose and grips the handle of her sword like she is trying to break it.

"I'm going to be fine," Clarke tells her. "You need to trust me. Trust Raven. Trust Monty. Trust Octavia and Lincoln. Trust _yourself_. We have a plan. It's solid. We _have_ this, Lexa."

Licking her lips, Lexa lowers her voice even further, so quiet that Clarke has to lean in to even register her words. "I cannot lose you, Clarke."

Clarke feels the words like a shot to the heart, and she reaches for Lexa's hands without thought. She doesn't care who sees. These people all know anyway.

"You won't," she promises, setting one hand atop Lexa's and resting the other on her chest, just over her heart. "You _won't_."

Lexa breathes heavily against Clarke's hand for several long seconds before she gives a hard nod and turns swiftly toward Lincoln and Octavia. She steps well into Lincoln's space, her glare boring into him. Her voice is hard, her teeth clenched tight, when she says, "You will protect her with your life if you value your freedom." Clarke knows she is fighting the fear rising in her chest and in her eyes. "Do this, and I will forgive your trespasses."

Lincoln nods firmly. "I will, _Heda_."

Moving to Octavia, Lexa steps in even closer. "Do this," she says again, "and I will claim you as a warrior of my clan. _Okteivia kom Trigedakru._ You will be honored among us."

Octavia's eyes brighten with hope, and she glances to Indra before giving her own solid nod. "I will, _Heda_."

Lexa takes a deep breath before stepping back, and Clarke knows it is time. She moves toward the exit but is pulled back again by a large hand settling on her shoulder. When she turns, Algor is standing beside her.

"What is it?" she asks him, and he taps the top of her head before spinning her around to put her back to his chest. When his fingers quickly begin unraveling her messy braids, Clarke tries to turn around. He keeps her in place, though, by pushing one hand against her shoulder to tell her to be still.

"Um, Algor," she says, "I know that the braids are a little messy, but this isn't really the time for fixing my hair. You can do it when I get back."

Algor's only reply is to bop her on the top of her head again, so Clarke merely rolls her eyes and holds still. He works quickly, weaving her hair into a new design with expert speed, and when he finishes, Clarke reaches back to touch the design. Her fingers slide over the new, tight braids, and she smiles. It is intricate.

When she turns to thank him, though, she is distracted by the reactions from the people behind him. Lexa, Indra, and Lincoln are all staring at her with slightly widened eyes, and then Lexa looks to Algor. They stare at one another for a long, tense, silent moment, before Lexa's eyes flood with understanding as she nods, and Algor turns back to Clarke.

She doesn't get a chance to ask about the reactions before he scoops her up in an unexpected embrace. Clarke wheezes in his arms and pats his back the best she can, and when he puts her down, she can't help but smile. She knew she had grown on him.

Dismissing the strange moment, Clarke arches a brow and asks, "Anything else?"

When the others merely stare back her, she nods. "All right. Let's go then."

* * *

The sun is higher now, brighter, but the morning is still chilly. Clarke marches across the campground with Lexa beside her and Indra and Algor on their tails, Lincoln and Octavia having veered off from the group to slip out of camp on the other side, unseen.

Clarke motions for the gate to be opened, and once it is, she and Lexa step out to meet the _Azgeda_ warriors.

"I will give your queen an hour once we get there," Clarke tells them. "If I don't return here in two hours' time, my people will come looking and they are authorized to attack. Is that understood?"

The _Azgeda_ warrior who had spoken to her before gives a nod, and Clarke returns it. Before she can tell them to lead the way, though, Lexa steps forward. She meets the gazes of both warriors in turn and says, "If she is harmed, the forest will be made red with your blood and the blood of your queen."

Both men bristle at the statement, but they do not respond, and Clarke thinks it is smart of them, because Lexa is extremely on edge. Clarke has no doubt that she would strike these men down where they stand if they so much as looked at her the wrong way right now.

"Is _that_ understood?"

Both warriors nod, and Clarke steps forward. She lets her shoulder brush briefly against Lexa's before moving past her. "Okay then. Lead the way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Yu kwin o ai?" - "Your queen or I/me?"


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slightly longer wait on this chapter, friends. I've been exhausted, and this is quite a long chapter. I loved writing this chapter so much, though. It's been a thrilling ride, and I'm hoping you all enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

The forest has always been confusing, since the moment Clarke's feet first touched the ground—an endless expanse of greens and browns, a variety of color and growth sprawling out in every direction. It blurs together before the untrained eye, every path seeming familiar, every angle providing the same, repetitive view, so that finding one's way from point to point—to and from and there and back—becomes an overwhelming, seemingly impossible task.

Still, Clarke tries.

She keeps her eyes glued open as she shuffles along between the two _Azgeda_ warriors, neither man uttering a word, and she takes in as much detail of the surrounding forest as she can. Just in case, she tells herself—just in case she needs to find her way back on her own.

Counting her steps, she tries not to let her mind wander. She tries not to wonder about the warriors walking alongside her, about their names and their lives, whether they have families or friends, and if they follow this woman willingly or because they are afraid of her. She tries not to think about Lincoln and Octavia, tries not to wonder where they are, if they are following and watching like they are meant to be; if they are safe.

She avoids thinking about her mother, tries not to imagine Abby pacing the length of the medical bay with tears in her eyes and her heart pounding beneath her ribs; anxious for news of Clarke's safe return. She avoids thinking about Bellamy and how he must ache to follow after Octavia, just to see with his own eyes that she is safe. She avoids thinking about Echo sitting in the stockade, plagued by thoughts of her brother and perhaps wondering if he is even still alive. She avoids thinking about her people, tries not to dwell on how much they need this, need _her_ to make this happen—to end this threat and secure a solution, secure the union, secure their futures.

Clarke tries not to think about what the Ice Queen might look like. She tries not to imagine the kind of cruelty she might find etched into this woman's face, lines formed from years of taking delight in the torture of others. She tries not to think about how this meeting might go, how this woman might perceive Clarke's bluffs; whether or not she will make it out of this alive.

No, of course she will. She meant what she said to Lexa. She _believed_ it, _believes_ it. The Ice Queen won't hurt her, because right now, she _needs_ Clarke. She needs her to sway the Sky People, to bring them to her side willingly. Clarke is too important to kill, too valuable to harm. Her death would mean an end to any possible alliance the Ice Queen might hope for. It would mean retaliation; a war, yes, but not the war she seeks. She would face not only the wrath of the Sky People, but the wrath of the Commander and her army as well.

Clarke tries not to think about Lexa, tries not to ache for her. She tries not to worry about the fear she knows must be coursing through the Commander's veins with every counted step Clarke takes farther and farther from her side. She tries not to think about Lexa's clenched fists and locked jaw, her hard, green eyes fighting to stay dry in Clarke's lengthy absence. She tries not to think about the chaos likely racking Lexa's brain—how she must be remembering, reliving the loss of Costia as if it is happening all over again; how she must be worrying, torturing herself with all the ways her morbid imagination can conjure, images of Clarke in danger, Clarke in pain, Clarke dying, dying, _dead_.

Clarke implores herself to stop, because as much as she is _trying,_ she is failing to silence herself. She is failing to switch off the part of her brain that is rampant with wonder and worry, and then she realizes that she has lost count of her steps. She has lost track of where she is, where these warriors have led her. She doesn't even know how long they have been walking.

Taking a deep breath, Clarke steadies herself. She tells herself to relax, breathes slowly and rhythmically to try to calm her racing, thumping heart, and she does what she told Lexa to do. She puts her trust in Lincoln and Octavia, in herself, in the plan. This, _all_ of this, will work, because it has to. There is no other option.

Clarke perks up when a new scent reaches her nose, breaking through the cool, crisp smell of the forest. The smell of cooking meat causes her stomach to knot and growl, and Clarke remembers that she hasn't yet eaten today. She isn't sure, though, that she _could_ eat even if she wanted to. Her body is drawn too tightly with nerves, and Clarke feels like pieces of her might snap apart any second.

She knows they must be close now, and as much is confirmed when they crest a fairly steep slope in the terrain to see a small circle of tents on the other side. One is much larger than the other three, and Clarke knows why. She knows who is waiting inside.

A fire burns in the center of the tent circle, several skewers of meat posted over it, and a lone warrior stands to the side, stoking the flames and turning the skewers. Clarke can see the white paint adorning the woman's face even from a distance but she can't make out any of her features beyond her dark hair, long and woven away from her face.

"You remember what I said?" Clarke asks as they stand atop the slope. "She gets an hour, and then I expect you to take me back to my camp. My people will be counting the minutes until I return."

The warrior to her left nods firmly and holds out his arm. Clarke stares at it for a moment, confused, before she realizes that he is offering an arm to steady her as they make their way down the other side of the steep slope. The offer pulls at something inside Clarke, because she wasn't expecting such a simple show of kindness from this man, or from any of these people. It only serves to remind her that these people are flesh and bone just like her, not monsters serving an even more monstrous leader, and so many of them are victims themselves.

Clarke blinks away the thought and places her hand atop the warrior's arm, accepting his offer. The limb is as stiff and strong as a metal pipe, never once shifting or wavering, as they carefully shuffle down the slope toward the tents, and when they reach the bottom, Clarke lets go of the man's arm and quietly mutters, "Thanks."

He doesn't acknowledge her gratitude but simply motions for her to follow him toward the largest of the four tents.

As they cross the small camp, Clarke gets a better look at the woman by the fire, and she notices that the warrior is fairly young, likely younger than Clarke herself. She is still a kid, and she glances up at Clarke as they pass, white paint streaked in four thin lines across her cheeks, two under each dark eye. Little white dots of paint run down the bridge of her nose as well and a lone vertical line decorates her chin. Her eyes widen a bit as she looks at Clarke, like she is seeing someone or something that shouldn't be real. They lock gazes for a moment, but the warrior quickly glances away as if that one look burns her, and Clarke's brow furrows.

She doesn't have long to ponder the strange behavior, though, before she turns back toward the large tent they are nearing. When she does, she hears a small, quiet gasp from behind her, but Clarke doesn't look back. She isn't sure she wants to know what the warrior girl is reacting to.

The two men escorting her stop just outside the opening to the largest of the four tents and turn toward Clarke. When they do, Clarke immediately takes a step back. She holds one hand up while bracing the other atop the gun holstered on her hip. "I hope you don't think you're going to pat me down or take my weapons," she says, "because I'm telling you right now—that's not going to happen. You've already got me here, _alone_ , which was a major show of trust from my people, especially after the attack that was launched at our camp, so you and your queen are going to give me the same trust. I have no intention of hurting anyone as long as no one tries to hurt me, but I'm outnumbered here, so I'm keeping my weapons. If anyone has a problem with that, then we might as well turn around and go back, because the only way I'm going in that tent is with my gun on my hip."

The warrior seems to contemplate her words for a moment before saying, "Wait here." He then turns and disappears through the tent flap. A few awkward moments pass in silence as she lingers outside the tent with the other warrior who doesn't look at her or utter a word, and then the first returns and motions for her to enter.

This is it, Clarke thinks, taking a deep breath. She can only hope that this works.

When she enters the tent, she is surprised by how dim it is, as if the occupant isn't interested in lighting the place much at all. There are a few small torches burning near a table on the far right, and a small flame flickering beneath what appears to be a bowl of oil with herbs floating in it. It creates a heady scent that makes Clarke feel somewhat dizzy at first. She quickly grows accustomed to it, though, and pushes her focus onto the makeshift throne at the far side of the tent.

The warrior who escorted her in stands just to the right of the throne, and the other, Clarke imagines, is still posted just outside the tent's entrance. She makes sure to keep her hand at her side, a breath away from her gun. Just in case, she tells herself; just in case.

Clarke is reminded of her first meeting with Lexa, of the way her heart had raced upon entering the Commander's tent to find her seated atop a throne of wood and antlers, twirling a knife in her hand like she had every intention of using it. This throne is instead adorned in pelts of white and light gray fur that sprawl out once they hit the floor and stretch across the tent like a carpet, and unlike Lexa, the woman sitting atop it holds nothing in her hands. They rest, empty, on the arms of the throne, loose and relaxed like the rest of the woman's body seems to be. She is not intimidated _by_ Clarke nor does she seem to want to intimidate Clarke; at least, not in any way that she is yet showing.

She wears fur-lined armor like her warriors, but of a bright white color that Clarke thinks would seem near blinding in the sunlight, and she appears to be weaponless, though Clarke doubts this to be the case. Her hair falls down around her bowed head and shoulders in dark blonde waves that billow out from beneath a hood crafted from the head of a white wolf. The pelt headdress sits atop the queen's head like a crown, the wolf's eyes glassy and lifeless, and its snout extending out over her shadowed face, fangs still intact. It makes Clarke uneasy, makes her stomach crawl, but then the woman slowly lifts her head, and Clarke can't focus on anything but her face. She does her best not to have any sort of visible reaction, but the sight certainly surprises her.

The Ice Queen is an older woman, much older than she or Lexa. Clarke imagines she must be somewhere around Abby's age, if not a little older, and the right side of her face shows her weathered beauty—fierce, strong features; admittedly lovely. The left side of her face, however, is marred by a massive scar that stretches from her hairline to her chin, straight through the center of her left eye, which, unlike her right, is a milky white color. Two thinner scars stretch in parallel lines to the left of the one running through her eye, like the track of claws down the side of her face.

Despite her efforts, Clarke can't help but to stare at the white, lifeless eye, so different from the calculating, obsidian one just to the right of it. She feels a shiver run down her spine, and she suddenly understands—the piercing eye. This is what the symbol on the flag and on the _Azgeda warriors'_ clothes represents, she realizes. This is the piercing eye, that which sees all. The realization only intensifies Clarke's discomfort. This woman has used a physical injury, a visible disability, as a way to enhance her own selfish lie and her people's belief in that lie; their fear of it.

"This is the one they call _Wanheda_."

Clarke nearly startles at the woman's words, the sound yanking her out of her daze and pulling her back to the moment. Focusing on the words, Clarke's brows knit together. "The one they call what?" she snaps, and the Ice Queen gives a small, but resonating hum.

Her voice is as cold as her title and smooth, fluid, like a serpent slithering its way around Clarke's body—an innocent winding until it squeezes the life out of her. Clarke imagines this woman has conquered with her voice alone.

"My warriors have heard whispers of you among the clans," the queen tells her, crossing her hands over her lap and loosely lacing her thin fingers together. "The Sky Girl with the sun in her hair, the one who felled the mountain. _Wanheda_ , they call you now—the Commander of Death."

Clarke's stomach bottoms out at the words, and her blood runs cold in her veins. She closes her eyes for only a moment, sees flashes of bodies littering tables and floors, flashes of charred flesh and scorched earth. Clarke has to steady herself with a subtle, deep breath before opening her eyes again.

 _I am become death_.

She hears the words in her head, resounding like the violent ring of a gunshot, the same words uttered from her own lips what now seems like forever ago. She was right. She _has_ become death, and it is no longer a feeling that lives only in the guilty pockets of her mind or in the permanent stains on her hands that only she can see. It is a truth, stamped into her body like a brand.

The title feels like a lump in her throat, jagged and growing. It feels like a weight on her chest, pressing down with the intent to crush. Still, Clarke steels herself. Straightening her spine, she lifts her chin, keeps her expression neutral, and says, "Well, today, you can just call me Clarke."

Releasing a quiet, raspy laugh, the woman with the piercing eye replies, "You may call me Nia."

"Nia," Clarke repeats with a nod of her head before clearing her throat. "I'm not sure what your warrior told you, but I'm going to make myself very clear before we go any further. My people are aware of my location. I'm sure you know about our technology and what we're capable of." Clarke carefully pulls up her sleeve to show the bandage wrapped around her bicep. She can feel the rough edges of her stitched wound through the material as she taps her arm, and Clarke can only hope the queen buys her bluff. "I had my people implant a chip in my arm before I left, so they can track every step I take. Like I told your warrior, if I'm not returned, unharmed, to my camp in two hours, they won't hesitate to attack."

Clarke watches as Nia's sharp, one-eyed gaze tracks down to the bandage before flitting back up. The woman's lips purse for only a moment before she tilts her head forward in an easy nod and says, "I have no intention of harming you, Clarke of the Sky People."

"We shouldn't have any problems then," Clarke tells her, despite knowing this woman would harm her in an instant if she believed it would gain her what she wanted. "Why did you want to meet with me?"

"I would have thought that obvious," Nia says. "Both our people stand much to gain from this meeting."

"How so?"

"We have a common goal," Nia tells her, and Clarke arches a brow.

"Which is?"

"Survival."

Clarke shifts on her feet, casting a glance around the tent. "It seems to me you're doing well enough," she says. "You've got clothes on your backs and food on the fire. You've obviously got the means and time to travel since you've come all the way here; not to mention the fact that my people took down the mountain for you, so there goes that threat. Your clan is part of the coalition. I would imagine your people would be stable enough."

"I speak not only of _my_ clan but of all clans, _all_ my people," Nia tells her. "The coalition is crumbling under Alexandria's leadership."

Clarke does her best not to physically react to the name, but she is certainly surprised. She has never known the Commander by any name other than Lexa. Now, though, Clarke knows is not the time to dwell on such things, so she maintains a neutral expression and keeps her gaze locked on the queen.

"The Commander _is_ the coalition," she argues, referring to Lexa by her title. Even if this woman won't afford her the respect she deserves, Clarke will. "She formed the coalition. It only exists _because_ of her, and from what I saw and heard in Polis, the people are happy with her leadership."

"The people are afraid to dissent," Nia tells her, and Clarke nearly snorts. The fact that this woman has the audacity to say that the people are afraid of Lexa is utterly astounding considering she forces her own clan into submission through lies and terrorism. "They will not speak of their troubles for fear of the Commander's wrath."

"Is that why you sent your warriors to kill her?" Clarke counters, and her hand instantly latches onto her gun when the warrior at Nia's side growls and reaches for his knife. They both freeze, though, when Nia quickly holds up a hand for the warrior to stop.

"There is no need for violence," Nia announces coolly, and her warrior hesitantly relaxes. As he does, Clarke does, but her hand never moves from her gun. It is like an instinct, flooding back through her system after weeks of being absent, weeks of being actively resisted.

Nia turns back to her, her one good eye pinning her as if the stare is intended to penetrate Clarke's exterior. "Know, however, that I do not take kindly to such accusations, Clarke of the Sky People," she says. "A concerned leader, I am, but a traitor, I am not."

"So, you don't know anything about the attack at my camp?" Clarke challenges. "Ice Nation warriors set fire to the Commander's tent in the middle of the night."

Nia watches her for a moment, stares at her like Clarke is a puzzle, as if she is trying to spot a pattern or solve a mystery, but then she merely gives a cluck of her tongue and says, "It is unfortunate when we lose our own. If they acted as you claim, then those warriors were no longer part of my clan, or perhaps they never were."

"Meaning?"

"Every clan has outcasts, Clarke," Nia tells her, tilting her head to the side, and Clarke hates the way her name clicks across the woman's tongue like the hammer of a pistol being locked into position, ready to strike against the primer and cause ignition. Her own name sounds like a weapon in this woman's mouth. "Those who are banished or who have gone rogue often rebel. For their misfortunes, they blame the one responsible for us all."

Clarke seethes at the slight smirk that tugs up the corner of the Ice Queen's mouth. The woman is perfectly calm, collected, and Clarke is willing to bet that she has an excuse for everything—excuses that, of course, paint her as perfectly innocent. She lies as easily as she breathes.

"I assume those responsible were _justly_ slain for their treason?" Nia asks, and Clarke clenches her jaw but nods.

"I have one of your warriors in my camp, though," she tells her, "alive."

Nia's expression is nothing if not knowing, but she still manages to push a hint of surprise into her tone. "Oh?"

"Her name is Echo," Clarke says, despite knowing this information is nothing new to the queen. She sent Echo to Camp Jaha in the first place, and her warriors have been watching the place for weeks. "One of the Commander's warriors and I were attacked on our way back from Polis. The arrow was wrapped with a flag that had your clan's symbol on it, so I'm sure you can understand why I was suspicious enough to have Echo arrested when I found out she was Ice Nation and living in my camp."

Nia's voice is as serpentine as ever as she says, "I would have done the same."

A hard, tense silence fills the air of the tent as Clarke stares at the Ice Queen. She doesn't say anything more but simply waits, waits for the tension to build to a nearly unbearable point. She waits for the woman to show an ounce of vulnerability, and then, just as Clarke hoped—

"Have you questioned her?"

"We've tried," Clarke tells her, forcing her lips into a straight, thin line so as not to give anything away, "but she is resistant. She refuses to speak, even to the Commander. She isn't afraid of punishment, and nothing we've offered her or threatened her with has gotten her to talk."

Clarke watches carefully for the Ice Queen's reaction, and she feels a wave of thrill flood her chest when she sees the slightest hint of relief flicker over Nia's features. The woman's shoulders, which Clarke hadn't even realized were tensed, relax, and Nia settles more fully back into her throne. Her expression of relief morphs into one of barely concealed satisfaction even as Nia says, "That is unfortunate."

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Clarke nods. "Yes," she replies. "I'm not sure what the Commander will decide to do with her, but since she won't provide any information, I will leave it up to her."

Nia's lips purse at those words but she doesn't argue. Instead, she says, "Alexandria has taken up temporary residence in your camp."

It isn't a question, but Clarke answers with a nod anyway. "We've been working out a deal," she explains. "Things were strained after the events of Mount Weather, but we've found a solution that works for everyone."

"Which is?"

Clarke lets a slow, sly smile work its way across her lips. "I thought you could see all?"

Nia visibly bristles at Clarke's unspoken implication, but she quickly steels herself and says, "Of my _own_ clan, yes. Of yours, I am afraid not."

"Ah," Clarke says with a click of her tongue. "Okay. I wasn't sure how that worked."

She can tell she is getting under the Ice Queen's skin, especially with her warrior standing only feet from her as Clarke challenges her. Clarke wants to push her. She wants to poke at her sensitive spots, but not too much. She doesn't want to enrage the woman. She just wants to rile her up a bit, break up some of her careful exterior so that the seeds Clarke is planting sink right in and grow.

"This deal," Nia says, pushing the focus off of herself. "What does it entail?"

"A union has been set in motion."

"A union requires a sacrifice of blood," Nia counters, "one made by each of the twelve clan leaders. It cannot be set in motion before we have agreed to this."

"A marital union doesn't require clan approval," Clarke tells her, and the Ice Queen visibly reels back in what Clarke assumes is shock. "If one of my people enters a union with one of the Commander's, then my people will merge with the _Trigedakru_ , which would automatically make us part of the coalition by being part of their clan." Clarke's nerves buzz beneath her flesh with every word that spills through her lips, but she forces herself calm—natural, fluid, _believable_. "The Commander already sent one of her people to Polis to announce the impending ceremony. He likely left shortly after your men escorted me here."

"Who intends to unite?" Nia demands to know, her voice sharp, colder even than before. Her body is rigid again, drawn taut atop her throne as she perches on the edge of it and stares Clarke down with her one good eye. It is the lifeless eye, though, that Clarke feels burning through her exterior.

" _I_ do," Clarke tells her, "with the Commander."

She watches as the color drains from the Ice Queen's face, but before either of them can speak a word, the warrior at Nia's side says, "She wears the Commander's Circle, my _kwin_. I have seen it."

Clarke hasn't got a clue what the Commander's Circle is, but the mention of it is enough to make the Ice Queen's lips part in a near gasp before the woman barks out, "Turn!"

"Excuse me?" Clarke snaps, tightening her grip around the handle of her gun.

Nia clears her throat, calms her voice. Her lips form a thin, forced smile when her gaze flicks up to Clarke's hair, and she says, "I wish to see your design."

Clarke hesitates for a moment, but with her hand still gripped around her gun, she slowly turns to put her back to the queen. She stands there only long enough to hear the tiniest hint of a gasp, much like the one she had heard from the young warrior outside the tent, before she turns back around. She has to resist the urge to touch the back of her head, run her fingers over the intricate design Algor had woven into her hair—the Commander's Circle. She has no idea what it means, but Clarke can tell it is only reinforcing her lie, and Clarke sends Algor a silent thank-you.

"It is true then," Nia says sharply before rising from her seat. She moves swiftly from her throne, crossing the tent to stand in front of Clarke much as Lexa had in their first meeting. Nia is tall, much taller than Clarke anticipated, and her thin, armored body towers over her as she moves in. Her milky white eye draws Clarke's attention again as the woman steps into her space, sends a fresh rush of chills down Clarke's spine. "This is a fool's decision, Clarke of the Sky People."

"My people need the security," Clarke bites out in response to the insult, "and the resources."

"These necessities can be gained through other means."

"Such as?"

"An alliance," Nia states plainly, "with _me_."

"Wouldn't an alliance with you be the same as an alliance with the Commander?" Clarke challenges. "Your clan _is_ part of the coalition, isn't it?"

"Alexandria's leadership is frail," Nia hisses, "and she has betrayed you once before, has she not?"

Clarke doesn't utter a word. She doesn't move a muscle beyond clenching her one empty hand into a fist. Fighting the urge to defend Lexa isn't easy, but she tamps down the fierce flame of loyalty that burns between her ribs and between her teeth and holds her ground in silence.

"She allows her people to starve and suffer," Nia tells her, taking another step toward Clarke so that Clarke's instinct is to step back, but she doesn't. "She favors her clan, takes resources for _Trigedakru_ that belong to us all, and the remaining clans must work to maintain each other. The winters are harsh and many die due to her favoritism. She is ruthless and merciless, and she will not care for your people as I will."

"You want to lead the coalition?" Clarke asks her, holding the woman's dark gaze. She then lowers her tone and presses further. "Are you suggesting that we join together to overthrow the Commander?"

Nia's dark eye glitters with a hint of thrill but she doesn't confirm, and Clarke isn't surprised. She only licks her thin lips and says, "I implore you to reconsider this union for all our sakes, not merely your own."

"Can you ensure the safety and security of my people?" Clarke whispers, and an almost predatory smile paints the woman's mouth.

"I can."

"They will want their freedoms," Clarke says, and Nia nods.

The lie slithers from her mouth as if it is truth. "They shall have them."

"I will have to discuss this with my people," Clarke tells her, and Nia shakes her head before turning to stalk back to her throne.

"I require an answer now."

Clarke holds her ground. "I can't give you one without consulting my people first."

" _Heda kom Skaikru_ ," Nia says. "Are you not the leader of your clan? You decide here, now."

"That's not how it works with my people," she says. "I don't have the authority to make decisions for my people on my own. We work by council."

"How long?" Nia practically growls, barely masking the anger in her voice. Clarke hears it regardless. She _sees_ it.

"A day, at least," she tells her. "I will return to camp and call a meeting tonight."

"And Alexandria?" Nia questions, arching a brow. "She is present in your camp."

Clarke licks her lips and nods. "The Commander will be kept in the dark until a decision is made."

Narrowing her eyes, one dark and curious, one blank and lifeless, Nia purses her lips. "Are you to be trusted, Clarke of the Sky People?" she asks, her tone low, threatening.

Clarke holds her gaze and doesn't waver. "You can trust that I want what's best for my people. Until I know what that is, I will keep my options firmly open."

A long, tense moment of silence stretches between them in the wake of the words before Nia finally nods and Clarke returns the gesture. The Ice Queen then motions for her warrior to see Clarke out. Just as they are about to exit the tent, though, Nia's cold voice fills the dim space again.

"I will send my warriors to collect you in two days," she says, "but know this, _Wanheda_ —I will not be crossed."

Clarke doesn't turn to look back at her but only gives another nod before letting her breath out in a silent sigh of nervous relief. Her stomach twists itself into painful knots as she follows the waiting warrior out of the tent and back into the cool, clear light of day.

* * *

The walk back to Camp Jaha through the steadily chilling woods is even more nerve-racking than the walk to meet the Ice Queen had been. Clarke isn't sure why. The meeting had gone smoothly, smoother even than Clarke could have hoped, but she keeps waiting for the bottom to drop out.

She keeps waiting for one of the men beside her to grab her, put a hand over her mouth and a rope around her wrists; drag her back to Nia's tent while the woman's cold laughter curls around her in mocking echoes. She keeps waiting to see Octavia and Lincoln ushered from the trees any moment, their own hands bound and their mouths gagged; shot down from the trees, from their careful observation and silent protection.

She keeps waiting for something, anything, to go wrong.

Nothing happens, though. No one touches her. No one shouts out the capture of two lurking warriors. No one utters a word.

When light begins to flood the forest floor, Clarke's stomach clenches and flips. Tree trunks are washed in the bright spots of sunlight not broken or scattered by foliage. They are close. A few more steps and she can burst from the tree line to see the familiar metal arches and arms of the Ark rising up out of the ground like a massive 'Welcome Home' sign. She knows she hasn't been gone long, but it feels as if a lifetime passed inside the Ice Queen's tent, another in the steps it took to get her back here—back to the Ark, back to her people, back to Lexa.

Clarke steps into the clearing behind the Ark, the two Azgeda warriors at her sides, and stops. "I can take it from here," she says. "You don't have to escort me to the gate."

She steps quickly away from the two men, not wanting to take any chances, but the warrior to her left only nods in her direction. He doesn't make a move to stop her, so Clarke takes off. She shifts her weight back as she carefully progresses down the small slope from the forest's edge, and Clarke has to force herself to be slow and steady. The urge to run is immense, but she does her best to ignore it. She is fine. She is unharmed, untouched, and what needed to be done has been done. Everything is fine.

She rounds the side of the Ark with quick, measured steps, and is only partially surprised to see a familiar figure standing outside the gate, tall and solid like a statue with one hand braced around the handle of a sword and the other curled into a fist at her side. Lexa's eyes carefully scan the trees, slowly shifting back and forth. Her gaze locks onto Clarke when she rounds the side of the fence, and Clarke feels like the ground has suddenly dropped from beneath her feet, but it doesn't leave her falling.

She instead soars when their eyes meet from across the short distance, when Lexa's body stiffens but then visibly slumps with relief at the sight of her. The urge to run only intensifies.

Lexa has been waiting outside the gate for her, Indra only a few feet away on her other side. Clarke is willing to bet that she hasn't left this position since Clarke was escorted away from camp. The thought of Lexa planted firmly in this spot and counting the minutes, anxiously awaiting her return, makes Clarke's bones feel loose and liquid. It makes her heart swell and thump heavily against her ribs. It makes her ache in all the best ways.

The nearer Clarke draws to her, the more rigid Lexa becomes, and Clarke knows why. She can feel her own body stiffening and tightening. They are both fighting the urge, the instinct to sprint, to close the remaining gap at a run; sink into one another's arms and against each other's lips like Clarke has just returned home from war.

Clarke doesn't run, but her steps are hurried, messy even, and when she does finally meet Lexa, they freeze in place a few feet apart. Their breathing is heavier than it should be, hard and shallow, and Lexa's cheeks are dry but her eyes are wet. The tears coating her eyes shimmer in the sunlight, and when she opens her mouth to speak, her voice cracks and strains against the open air as if she hasn't used it in ages.

"Clarke," she croaks, her throat bobbing with a visible swallow, and Clarke's lips pull up with a smile.

"Lexa," she whispers as Lexa's gaze darts down the length of her body, obviously seeking out visible injuries. "You waited here the whole time?"

Lexa doesn't say anything but simply gives one firm nod, and Clarke watches as her throat bobs again with another hard swallow. She can tell how hard it is for Lexa to hold back her tears of relief, but she is managing, and the sight only makes Clarke's ache for her grow deeper, richer.

"Come on," Clarke tells her, tilting her head toward the gate. "We can talk inside."

Once the gate is open, she and Lexa head inside, Indra trailing behind them, and they quickly make their way toward and inside the Ark. Lexa is silent all the way, rigid as a board, and her jaw is locked so hard that Clarke fears for her teeth. Her walk is as stiff as her spine, heading toward the now familiar path that leads to the council room, but Clarke quickly grabs her elbow and veers her in the opposite direction.

When they reach their room, Clarke ushers Lexa inside and she swears she sees Indra roll her eyes as she posts up outside the door. It brings a smile to Clarke's lips as she shakes her head and closes the door. The soft click seems to jar Lexa, who stands in the center of the room, one hand still gripping her sword and the other still tightened into a fist. Her eyes lock onto Clarke, wide and still wet as she stands before her like she has been frozen in place.

With slow, careful steps, Clarke crosses the room and places her hands on Lexa's arms only to feel that she is trembling. Clarke squeezes gently before running her hands up and down the lengths of her limbs, watching Lexa's body just slightly relax with each stroke. "You need to breathe," Clarke whispers, because Lexa is still rigid like she has been holding her breath for far too long, and her cheeks are red, expression etched with her discomfort.

The faintest of whimpers slips up from Lexa's throat as she parts her lips, a loud rush of air pushing out of her lungs like it is desperate to escape. She sucks in a hard, sharp breath to replace it and clenches her eyes closed. A stream of tears escapes, slipping down her cheek like a confession, and Clarke quickly swipes it away. The sight is enough to make her own eyes sting and water.

"I'm okay," she whispers, cupping Lexa's cheek. The way Lexa lets go of her sword to grip Clarke's hand as it cradles her face is enough to make Clarke's heart burn and her flesh tingle. She steps closer, sliding one hand down to slip around Lexa's waist, and kisses the corner of her mouth. "I'm okay."

Lexa shudders against her and then suddenly Clarke is being engulfed by strong arms, devoured by an insistent mouth pressing hungrily to hers. She melts into the urgent embrace with ease, giving herself over willingly and letting Lexa touch her, letting Lexa take what she needs in this moment.

Lexa's tears slip over Clarke's cheeks as their lips press and slide together, as Lexa sucks at Clarke's bottom lip and digs her fingers into Clarke's pliant hips, and Clarke is overwhelmed with the feeling. She is overwhelmed with Lexa's worry, her fear, her need, her want, her _love_. Her body is alive and throbbing, desperate in seconds to have and to be had, and Clarke knows Lexa needs to feel her.

Hands slip from her body for only a moment, and Clarke barely has time to register the clatter of weapons dropping like bombs from her lover's hips before Lexa's hands are on her again. They slide down her thighs and around, and Clarke gasps against Lexa's teeth when the Commander suddenly digs in, grips her just under her ass, and lifts her off the floor.

Clarke moans as she wraps her legs around Lexa's waist and feels the warmth of Lexa's stomach radiating through her pants and Lexa's top, right where Clarke is throbbing, pulsing, aching. "Lexa," she hisses, the sound evolving into a throaty moan when her back hits the wall a moment later and Lexa presses in even harder, rhythmically rocking her hips up into Clarke. The motion causes the butt of Clarke's gun to dig into her side, but she doesn't care.

"Clarke," Lexa mutters, raspy and broken. " _Beja._ " She flicks her tongue against the roof of Clarke's mouth and squeezes her thighs. Holding Clarke against the wall with her body, Lexa slips one hand up to the waistband of Clarke's pants and gives it a gentle tug. " _Beja_ ," she repeats in a strained whisper. "Please."

Those words are nearly enough to cause Clarke to splinter apart, and she can't stop her hips from bucking. She nods frantically as she winds one hand into Lexa's hair and kisses her like she intends to steal the breath from her lungs, and that is all Lexa needs.

She lets one of Clarke's legs fall but keeps the other wrapped around her waist, making room to wrestle her hand down the front of Clarke's pants. Their foreheads knock together as they both shudder, go liquid at the first swipe of Lexa's fingers down the length of Clarke's soaked slit. She enters her with one swift thrust, and Clarke moans against the cold metallic pane of Lexa's shoulder guard.

Clarke holds on has tightly as she can, rocking her hips against Lexa's hand and stomach as Lexa pumps into her with abandon, and it doesn't take long for her to reach her peak. No sound beyond a rush of breath leaves her lips when she tumbles over the edge, and all she can do is clamp her eyes closed and let her mouth hang open in a silent scream, clinging to Lexa like she might fall apart without her. Clarke thinks she truly might.

Lexa holds her steady through every rocking wave until Clarke's orgasm reaches its end, and then she carefully removes her hand from Clarke's pants and lowers Clarke's other leg to the floor. She kisses the sweaty expanse of Clarke's neck and mutters under her breath words that Clarke cannot hear but understands even if only in vibrations.

There is a delicious, aching stretch in Clarke's thigh now, and her legs wobble a bit as she stands and catches her breath, Lexa's body still pressed against hers and Lexa's hands stroking her waist and her cheek. Resting her temple against Lexa's, Clarke runs a hand over brown waves and braids and kisses Lexa's jaw. "I told you you wouldn't lose me," she whispers, breathless. "I meant it."

At those words, Lexa shifts and then Clarke is fully encased in her arms again. This time, though, Lexa only holds her, grips her like she had in Polis when they had filled a dark, quiet doorway with a much-needed embrace. Clarke wraps her arms around Lexa's back and neck, the best she can over her armor, and holds her just as tightly.

They remain that way for several long moments, Clarke waiting for Lexa's grip to loosen and her breathing to even entirely out. When she calms, Lexa slowly pulls back from Clarke and sighs when Clarke reaches up to wipe her cheeks for her again.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Clarke mutters, looking into Lexa's lovely green eyes. She pauses for a moment before adding, "Alexandria."

Lexa's eyes widen momentarily but then her lips pull with the smallest of smiles, and that draws a smile to Clarke's mouth as well.

"Why didn't you tell me your name is Alexandria?" Clarke asks, swiping her thumb over Lexa's wet bottom lip, still swollen with Clarke's kisses. "You told Kane and Jaha that your name was Lexa."

"Yes," Lexa says with a nod, her voice still throaty from her tears, "when I posed as a prisoner. After we met, you addressed me as Lexa, and I did not think to correct you."

"Oh," Clarke says. "Do you want me to call you Alexandria?"

Lexa smiles against Clarke's lips, kissing her soundly. She is still trembling but her body relaxes further with every second they spend wrapped around one another. "You may call me Lexa."

"You like it better?"

"On your lips, Clarke, yes," Lexa whispers, and Clarke grins.

They press lazy kisses to one another, letting the world drop away for a moment before Clarke shifts back and says, "You could have warned me about the eye, you know."

"I told you of the eye, Clarke," Lexa replies, and Clarke snorts.

"Well, I apparently thought it was a metaphor."

"What is a metaphor?"

Clarke's lips spread with a wide smile as she shifts off the wall and pulls Lexa toward their bed. They settle onto the edge of it, twisting to face each other. "It just surprised me, her eye … the scars. Do you know what happened to her?"

"She was young when she received the wound," Lexa says, "long before my birth. Her mentor and another warrior were killed in a battle that none but she survived to speak of. Her tale is that of a god in the form of a great bear that appeared in the forest. The beast spoke as we speak and challenged the warriors to slay him. None but she survived his attacks, so he deemed her worthy of his blessing and gave her the power of divine sight for as long as she bore his mark. She then foretold that the _Azgeda_ leader would die of illness, and when this happened, her people selected her to next receive the title. She has led them since."

Clarke blinks a few times, soaking in the story, and she can't help the small laugh that bubbles up and escapes her. "You don't actually believe that, do you?"

Lexa's lips stretch around an easy smile as she says, "No, Clarke. I do not."

"Okay," Clarke says, letting herself laugh more fully. "Just checking."

"Even those who do not believe, however, rarely question," Lexa tells her. "Fear of the unknown is too powerful a foe."

"No one can prove she was lying," Clarke says, nodding. "I get it."

They fall quiet for a moment, simply drinking in the comfort of being together in their room, away from the chaos and weight of their responsibilities, before Lexa asks, "She seeks an alliance?"

"Yes."

"She believed you?"

"I think so."

" _Everything_?"

"She wasn't happy about the union part, but I'm pretty positive she believed me," Clarke tells her. "This seemed to help." Clarke runs her hand over her braids, now slightly messy from rubbing against the wall, and Lexa nods in understanding. "You want to tell me what the Commander's Circle is?"

"It is a design one wears when under the Commander's personal protection," Lexa explains. "It is very rare and is typically only worn by a Commander's spouse or children. Commanders rarely bear children, however, and few have entered marital unions."

"Oh," Clarke whispers, stomach flipping, and Lexa nods again.

"Algor chose wisely," she says. "I admit I was surprised. The Commander's Circle is a sacred braid among my people and seeing you wear it, Clarke …"

"Made you think?" Clarke asks, finishing Lexa's thought with her own.

"Yes."

Clarke slips a hand over Lexa's knee and squeezes. "This union is a chance for us to have this," she whispers, " _us_."

"Yes," Lexa mutters again, and Clarke smiles at the way her eyes flood with hope even as her body tenses at the words.

"So," Clarke says, scooting closer and moving her hand from Lexa's knee to tangle her fingers with the Commander's, "maybe I'll wear this braid again someday. Not right away but maybe someday."

Clarke bites her lip at the way Lexa's cheeks flush pink, the way Lexa visibly swallows again and looks so much more her age—young and flushed and hopeful. She is beautiful as she leans slightly forward and whispers, "You would have me, Clarke of the Sky People?"

Lexa is vulnerable in this moment, staring at Clarke like she somehow pulled the sky down with her when she fell, coated it onto her flesh like a second skin. Lexa is looking at her like there are galaxies swirling in her pores and stars streaking across her exposure, and it makes Clarke feel endless and open, vast and unafraid.

Bowing her head, Clarke presses her forehead to Lexa's temple, squeezes her hand, and says, "I would." She tilts up just enough to graze her lips over Lexa's cheekbone. "Would you have me?"

Lexa returns the pressure of Clarke's squeezing hand, and her voice is hardly more than a puff of air when she whispers, "Yes."

They remain that way, pressed against one another, long enough that Clarke's body grows sore from staying in the same position, but she doesn't want to move. She makes herself, though, shifting back from Lexa and stretching out her arms. "We should head out," she says, and Lexa lets out a quiet sigh but nods regardless.

"Food has been saved for you."

Clarke stands from the bed and crosses to the center of the room. She bends to scoop up Lexa's weapons belt before handing it over. "Let's go then, Commander," she says. "I'm sure Indra has a scowl waiting for both of us, and I need to see my mom."

The words earn Clarke a smile as Lexa dons her weapons before following her from the room.

* * *

Clarke is barely out of the Ark when she spots Octavia near the fire pit with Lincoln and Bellamy, and she takes off before she can stop herself, barreling into the other girl's side. "You're okay," she whispers, and Octavia lets out a soft laugh as she shifts in Clarke's arms to wrap one around her back and squeeze.

"Of course I am," Octavia says, patting Clarke's back. " _You're_ the one who needed protecting."

When Clarke pulls away, she reaches over to squeeze Lincoln's arm. "I was a little on edge," she admits with a laugh. "I'm glad you're both okay."

"How'd it go?" Bellamy asks, reaching for food from the fire and handing Clarke a small stick with some sort of meat skewered to it. He hands it to her like a peace offering, his eyes soft and hopeful. "Any trouble?"

"None," Clarke tells him, taking the skewer and giving up the smallest of smiles. "I'm actually surprised it went as well as it did. Like I said, I was a little on edge."

"We had your back," Octavia says, nudging Clarke's elbow, and Clarke grins at her. "Right behind you the whole time."

"You did well," Lexa says, reaching the small group and stepping into the empty space beside Clarke. She nods first toward Lincoln and then Octavia. "I will not forget."

Octavia's face lights up like the sun, and Clarke feels a flood of warmth spread through her chest. She is content to stand there and soak in the moment but the smell of the meat in her hand is enough to draw her attention. She tears into it like she hasn't eaten in days, moaning at the taste and drawing a laugh from Octavia. She barely makes it to her third bite, though, before a loud shout rings out, splitting the air.

One of the guards stumbles from the Ark, his left arm hanging at an unnatural angle at his side. "She's gone!" he shouts, crimson spraying from between reddened teeth. His face and uniform are stained heavily with blood that seems to have spilled mostly from his nose, and his expression is drawn tight with his obvious pain. "The prisoner—she escaped!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> "Beja" - "Please"


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. The penultimate chapter has arrived, and let me tell you, it was a wild, emotional ride to write from start to finish. I absolutely enjoyed every second of it, and I hope you will too. Please note the tags on this story if you haven't already. Those warnings are there for a reason.
> 
> I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "We Must Be Killers" by Mikky Ekko. Give it a shot if you like, and I shall see you all again for the final chapter. Enjoy! XO-Chrmdpoet

“What do you mean she escaped?” Bellamy snaps at the injured guard as Clarke runs her hand along the man’s deformed shoulder. The whole of Camp Jaha, or at least those who had been milling about outside, is clumped up outside the entrance of the Ark, murmuring their concerns and shouting out their own questions or simply voicing their sharp _yeah’s_ to support every furious word popping out of Bellamy’s mouth.

Octavia, Lincoln, Indra, and Algor hold the majority of them back, standing like stone sentinels in a ring around Clarke, Lexa, Bellamy, and the guard. Bellamy dances on his feet, shifting back and forth like he can’t hold still, like he wants to launch off the earth or rather launch a fist into someone’s face. “What the hell happened, Grady?”

Wiping at his bloody nose, Grady grimaces at Clarke’s palpations and says, “She attacked us.”

“She had _two_ armed guards on her!” Bellamy’s fists are clenched, his body wound tightly, and Clarke can tell that he is seconds away from exploding. She can’t tell, however, if it is because he is worried for Echo or angry at her; perhaps both. “She didn’t even have a weapon! You’re telling me she managed to take you _both_ down without a weapon?”

“It’s not like she’s some helpless kid!” Grady growls, shrugging away from Clarke and spitting a spray of blood and saliva toward the ground at Bellamy’s feet. “You’ve seen what these people are capable of. That girl is like a wild animal, and I’m lucky I’m even alive!”

“You’re highly trained!”

“So is _she_ ,” Clarke interjects, moving to stand between the two of them. Pressing a hand to Bellamy’s chest, she pushes him gently back and pins him with a hard stare. “You need to calm down.”

Bellamy fumes, opens his mouth like he is about to argue, but nothing escapes as Clarke stares him down, stares him into silence. When he closes his mouth and crosses his arms tightly over his chest, Clarke takes a breath and turns back to Grady. “Your shoulder is dislocated,” she says, “and your nose is broken. We should get you to the medical bay.”

“Carver’s the one you should be helping,” Grady replies gruffly. “That freak ...” Clarke bristles at the term, shifts her body more firmly between the guard and Bellamy. She doesn’t know what, exactly, Bellamy is feeling for Echo these days, but she knows it is enough to land this man in the medical bay for a hell of a lot more than a dislocated shoulder if he keeps it up with the insults.

“… She got the jump on her, played like she was sleeping when Carver took in her breakfast tray. I heard the struggle, but when I went in, Carver was already on the floor and she was ready for me. She was too fast, twisted my arm back and cracked me in the nose. Everything just went black after that, and I don’t even know how long I was out. When I came to, she was already gone, and Carver was still down. She didn’t look right. I think, I think she might be dead.”

Stomach twisting briefly at the thought, Clarke swallows down the lump in her throat and says, “I’ll send someone to get Carver, but let’s get you to the medical bay.”

Grady nods and turns to shuffle back into the Ark, and Clarke turns toward Octavia as the people surrounding them all begin to murmur to one another again and shout out random questions that drown in the heavy thump of Clarke’s heartbeat in her ears. “Octavia,” she says, nodding for the younger girl to step over.  Lincoln moves with her as if connected by some invisible cord, and Clarke lowers her voice to a soft murmur so that only they can hear her. “Go with Grady to the medical bay, and then get Carver from the stockade. She’s probably just unconscious. Echo could have killed them both easily, so if she didn’t kill Grady, then she probably didn’t kill Carver either. Take her to the medical bay, and I’ll meet you there shortly.”

Octavia nods and then starts to move around Clarke. She turns back before she can disappear into the Ark, though, and reaches for Clarke’s arm. At the gentle tug, Clarke turns around and watches Octavia’s gaze dart by her, focusing momentarily on her brother, and then dart back. “Clarke,” she mutters, and Clarke squeezes her arm.

“I know. I’ll talk to him.”

When Octavia disappears into the Ark with Lincoln, Clarke barely gets a chance to take a breath before Bellamy is practically on top of her. “How could she be so stupid?” he growls, and Clarke lets out a hard sigh.

“Bellamy—”

“She knows,” he says, the muscles in his face taut and strained. His nostrils flare with every hard breath he takes. “She _knows_ what will happen to her if she goes back. She’ll be killed, Clarke. We don’t even know how long she’s been gone. She could be dead already. She could be—”

“Fine,” Clarke says, cutting him off. “She could be _fine_ , Bellamy. You need to calm down and listen to me.”

“How the hell are _you_ so calm right now, Clarke?” Bellamy counters. “She could tell them _everything_ about us. She knows all our weaknesses.”

“Do you really think she’d do that?”

“I really thought she wouldn’t try something this stupid, but look where we are now.”

“We’re going after her.”

Bellamy stares for a moment, his chest rising and falling rapidly with every sharp, shallow breath. “We don’t even know where she is,” he says weakly. “We can’t know for sure that she went back.”

“Where else would she have gone? The queen has her little brother. She’s not going to just abandon him, just like you wouldn’t abandon Octavia. She went back.”

Bellamy huffs and runs a hand through his tangled hair. His body is still rigid, but the anger seems to be seeping out of him with each deepening breath. He opens his mouth, closes it, licks his lips, and shakes his head. “I don’t even know if I’m ready to forgive her, Clarke,” he says quietly. “I don’t know if I’m there yet, but I’d like to have the _chance_ to actually get there.”

Clarke carefully sets a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “We will get her back, Bellamy. We _will_.”

“Alive?” he whispers, eyes wide and full with the same fear Clarke has seen in them too many times since Bellamy finally cracked open his rigid exterior and let her in, let her see all the ways the world has made him tremble.

The doubt in his voice feels like yet another body, yet another soul, slinking up Clarke’s back to test the strength of her spine. She never once wavers, though, when she says, “I hope so.”

“You have a plan, Clarke. I know you. What are we going to do?”

“We are going to do what is necessary to prevent a war.”

Lexa’s voice is smooth, clear of concern, as she steps next to Clarke and meets Bellamy’s eyes.

“You should prepare your people,” she says. “We will take as many as are willing.”

Bellamy’s gaze darts back and forth between Lexa and Clarke, eyes widening as the realization sinks in. “You want to take an army with us?”

“Not an army,” Clarke says, glancing behind Bellamy to make sure that no one is within earshot. She sees Indra and Algor still standing firmly between them and the crowd, their swords drawn and extended, tips pressing to the ground like they are marking the points that no one is to cross. “Just back-up. Just in case. We don’t know what will happen when we get there. I’m hoping it doesn’t come down to a fight, but it might.”

“I’ll start talking to people,” Bellamy says, “but we might not get a lot of volunteers. People are still, you know …. They won’t be eager to pick up a gun again.”

“I know,” Clarke says, “but try. I’m not going to force anyone to go, but we need numbers—so anyone who’s willing. I have to talk to my mom, take care of a few things, but we’re heading out as soon as possible, so make sure everyone is ready, and Bellamy, make sure they know.”

Brow furrowing, Bellamy quietly asks, “Know what?”

“That there aren’t any guarantees,” Clarke tells him. “We’re going to do our best to make sure this goes smoothly, but it could get ugly.”

“People could die,” Bellamy murmurs solemnly, his expression flattening as understanding seeps in.

“Yeah,” Clarke says, chest hollow like an empty tomb, waiting. “People could die.”

* * *

“Clarke,” Abby says, the name releasing in a rush of a sigh as Abby crosses the medical bay from where she is speaking quietly with Octavia and Lincoln, and in a few fast, long strides, she pulls Clarke into her arms. “You’re okay.”

Closing her eyes, Clarke presses her hands to her mother’s back and lets herself relax into the embrace for a moment. “I’m okay.”

“I was worried,” Abby whispers, squeezing her harder. “Why didn’t you find me as soon as you got back?”

Clarke is thankful to be able to hide her flushed cheeks in her mother’s hair as she mutters, “I was … I had to ….” Clearing her throat, she steels herself and pulls back from Abby’s embrace. She motions across the bay toward the two injured guards on cots. “How are Grady and Carver?”

She tries not to feel the pressure of Abby’s penetrating stare at the side of her face or the heat of the glaringly obvious answer to Abby’s question that is practically wafting off of Lexa’s body where she stands only feet from them. The worst, though, is Octavia’s amused smirk. It may as well jump off the girl’s face, grow arms and legs and vocal chords, and put on a show for everyone. There is no ignoring it.

Abby’s arching brow is visible in Clarke’s peripheral, but thankfully, her mother merely turns to stand at her side and face the injured guards. “Good,” she says. “Carver has some bruised ribs but that seems more due to her fall than any actual attack. Echo must have just rendered her unconscious, and Grady’s injuries have already been tended to. He will need to take it easy for a while, but they will both be fine.”

“Okay,” Clarke says, letting out a soft sigh of relief. “That’s good.” She glances to Lexa who gives her a gentle nod, the corner of her mouth pulling with the hint of a knowing smile. “That’s good.”

“It’s time, then?” Abby asks, and Clarke nods.

“I’ll have to check with Raven and Monty,” she says, “but yeah, it’s time. As long as they’ve got what we need, we should be able to head out before it gets dark. We have to act fast, because the longer we wait, the riskier things get.”

“And you’re sure this is the best plan?” Abby asks. “We’ve already been through so much, and if this goes poorly—” She cuts herself off, sighing. “We can’t handle another war right now.”

“That’s why we’re doing this,” Octavia says, shifting into the empty space on Abby’s other side. “We’re trying to _prevent_ a war.”

“War is a brand one wears for life,” Lexa says, startling them with her soft-spoken words. She moves closer to Clarke’s side but faces Abby as she speaks. “The pain of its mark _does_ fade, but it requires time. We must act to secure that time. What we do today can prevent the possible brands of tomorrow.”

Clarke is surprised to see such gentle understanding in the Commander’s eyes as they look past her to rest on Abby. It is a softness Clarke knows to typically be reserved for only her, and the sight is affecting, dizzying in its impact and in all that Lexa is communicating. Clarke knows that this is Lexa giving bits of herself to Abby, to Clarke’s people, to a people who will soon be _Lexa’s_ people as well. Her understanding, her wisdom—for Lexa, giving these to another is a show of respect and perhaps even, in a way, affection. It makes Clarke feel breathless and warm, proud of how far they have come since her starving days in the forest, and of what they are striving to become now, together.

With a quiet sigh, Abby nods and says, “Okay,” that single word like a sledgehammer, shattering her doubt, and Clarke doesn’t know why, but it feels like it stretches far beyond this moment, to hushed arguments and bitter words.

To _‘if you stay with her.’_

To _‘all this drama and chaos and_ war _.’_

To _‘you won’t ever be free.’_

It feels like an ‘okay’ to wipe the slate clean.

* * *

Her heavy steps echo through the Ark as Clarke hurries along the familiar path to Raven’s station. She can hear the crackle of static and the hum of a familiar voice floating out from the door long before she reaches it, and the sound only makes Clarke pick up the pace. Her heart is pounding when she rounds into the room, and Raven’s head snaps up from where she and Monty are bent over the device they built.

“We did everything like you said.”

“I know,” Clarke says, breathless. “You did great, both of you. It worked perfectly. How long has it been?”

“A little over an hour, maybe.”

A jolt of thrill crackles through Clarke’s system like the static crackling in her ears. “You got it?”

“Oh we definitely got it,” Raven confirms, tapping her hand atop the device she and Monty built. “It’s harsh.”

“The worse it is, the better,” Clarke says, glancing to Monty. “How long do you need?”

“Ten minutes, maybe?”

“Okay,” Clarke says, moving back toward the door. “I’ll be back then, and guys?”

“Yeah?” Raven asks at the same time that Monty’s face peeks back up from behind the device, his brows rising to disappear beneath the swoop of his bangs.

“Thank you for this,” Clarke tells them, pushing as much meaning into the words as she can manage. “You might have just saved us all.”

She barely gets the words out, barely has a chance to register the way Monty’s lips pull with a smile or the way Raven’s expression tightens like she is fighting off any tiny hint of emotion stirred by Clarke’s words, when someone sweeps into the room and shoves past Clarke.

Jasper’s shoulder knocks against Clarke’s as he plows through the room and over to the table Monty is seated at. He stands like a baby bird on a wavering branch, shaky but ready to step forward and dive. Hands tightened into fists at his side like miniature wrecking balls ready to swing, he says, “I’m going with them.”

“With who?” Monty asks, reaching to lower the volume on the device in front of him before standing to face his best friend. “What are you talking about?”

His words sink in Clarke’s stomach like a heavy stone plunking into water. She feels the impact, feels the brutal drag to the bottom, and the feeling only seems to intensify when Jasper says, “With Bellamy and the others to get Echo back. I’m going to fight.”

Panic flickers over Monty’s features. “What?” He nearly chokes on the word as he pushes to get around the table. “You can’t. You’re, you’re, you know, _grieving_.”

“Yeah,” Raven says, chiming in. “Maybe it’s too soon to jump back in, man. The others can handle it. You should stay. I’m staying. Monty’s staying, too. You can hang here with us.”

“No,” Jasper says firmly. “I didn’t come here so you could talk me out of it, so don’t try. I just came to say bye.”

“You’re not yourself right now,” Monty tells him. “You haven’t been yourself since—”

“Since you killed my girlfriend,” Jasper bites out, cutting him off, and suddenly the room grows thick with tension, thick with heat that seems to be burning the air down to nothing. Monty visibly reels back, and Clarke’s palms begin to sweat. “No, I’m not myself anymore, but you’re not you anymore either. None of us are who we used to be.”

“But Jas—”

“No, Monty,” Jasper snaps. “I’m going. I need to do this, okay? So, you need to just back off and let me.”

Monty’s expression twists with the desperation he likely feels inside when he looks to Clarke, his eyes pleading.

Whirling around, Jasper points toward Clarke, and his gaze is hard like the stone Clarke can still feel sinking inside. “Don’t you dare,” he says, voice low and cutting. “You don’t get to make decisions for me. I’m going.” He doesn’t wait for a response before stomping out of the room.

Gaping, Monty’s gaze darts back and forth between Clarke and the open door. “Clarke,” he squeaks. Raven rounds the table, holding onto the edge to help her along, and places a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. His eyes well up as he glances to her and then back to Clarke.

“He may not have to fight at all,” Clarke says, trying to reassure him. “We don’t know what will happen when we get there, but he’s right. I can’t make decisions for him. I’m sorry, Monty, but I can’t always be the one making all the decisions. If Jasper thinks this is something he needs, then I’m not going to take that from him. I’ve taken enough from him already.”

Clarke doesn’t stick around to see the disappointment she knows will taint Monty’s features. She doesn’t stick around to see Raven’s pained expression of understanding. She turns as quickly as she can, calling over her shoulder that she will be back for the device in ten minutes, and swiftly leaves the room.

* * *

Their group is small, thirteen only. Bellamy had only been able to convince a few people to join them on the mission, too many thinking it a waste of time to go after a Grounder who wasn’t even one of their own and who had betrayed them. Those present, though, are determined and steady, most of them falling into step behind Clarke and Lexa with their weapons at the ready and their eyes scanning the cold woods.

Lincoln and Octavia lead them, darting out ahead of the group to retrace the path that, unlike Clarke, they had been able to keep track of. They map out the way in hurried steps, silent like Lexa’s feet on the leaf-strewn ground, like Indra’s, like Algor’s. They move with such quiet grace that Clarke finds herself flinching at every loud crunch of earth beneath her own feet, beneath Bellamy’s and Jasper’s and Miller’s, beneath feet that grew up on metal and never learned how not to echo.

No one breathes a word along the way, everyone too focused on pushing one foot out in front of the other and keeping their hands locked tightly around their weapons. Clarke shares their quiet but feels Lexa’s gaze on her like it has breath and voice, a demanding physical presence, drawing Clarke’s eyes toward her. They glance to one another every few steps, their shoulders lightly brushing, and Clarke thinks of their march to Mount Weather. She thinks of Lexa’s sliver of a smile and of her own thumping heart, of the warriors chanting and shouting around them as if victory had already found its way into their grasp.

She wonders if this, too, will end with the painfully unexpected.

They see the glow of the _Azgeda_ camp before they see the camp itself, the shifting light of a fire dancing about the dim early evening and casting shadows on the trees in the pink wash of sunset. Clarke is unsurprised when they crest the final slope to find the Ice Queen standing at the bottom by the fire in the center of her camp, flanked by a single warrior on each side, and poised outside the entrance of her tent. They are ready, waiting, as Clarke knew they would be.

Clarke glances to Lexa before turning toward her people. “Nobody makes any sudden moves,” she says. “Keep your weapons pointed toward the ground. We don’t want to give them any reason to attack.”

They nod, and Clarke signals for them to follow her carefully down to the camp.  

“Ah, _Aleksandria_ ,” the Ice Queen calls as they file in, filling in the circle around the fire to face Nia and her two warriors. The queen’s voice is as chilled as Clarke remembers and dripping with disdain. “What an—” Her lip curls, a sneer mapping its way across her face as if her next word tastes nearly too bitter for her to bear forming it on her tongue. “—honor.”

With a flick of her wrist, the _Azgeda_ warriors shift in unison, drawing their weapons and locking into fighting stance. As soon as they move, the collective ringing draw of their swords rending the air with its metallic slide, Clarke jolts to a halt and Lexa throws a hand in the air to signal for the others to do the same.

“Nia,” Lexa says, stepping slowly forward so that only the fire separates them. She pins Nia with a glare that reminds Clarke of their first meeting. It is hard, penetrating, unrelenting. Her voice is low, the edges of her next words dusted with the rumbling nature of a growl. “Your warriors raise arms against me on your command.”

“Of course not,” Nia replies smoothly. “My warriors raise arms only as a precaution. These people enter our camp with their weapons drawn. Are we not permitted to protect ourselves, _Commander_?”

Indra huffs from Lexa’s left, and Clarke cannot see her but can clearly imagine Indra’s hand tightening over her sword. “Defiant,” she barks, and the Ice Queen purses her lips.

“ _Concerned_ ,” she counters thickly, shooting a hard glare in Indra’s direction. Her gaze then slithers to Lexa’s opposite side and zeroes in on Clarke like a predator targeting prey.

“Clarke of the Sky People,” she says slowly, every syllable sharp and stinging like the slide of a blade over tender skin. She steps further toward the fire so that the shadow of the fanged wolf’s head seated atop her crown grows into a great and godlike beast on the canvas of the large tent behind her. The twisting flames reflect across her white lifeless eye, like fire somehow trapped in ice, and the sight makes the flesh at the back of Clarke’s neck prickle. “You disappoint me.”

“We aren’t looking for a fight,” Clarke says, the words puffing out in barely there clouds of fog before dissipating.

“Oh no?” Nia challenges. “We agreed you would return in two days’ time yet my warriors come to me with talk of the Sky People building an army against me, and here you are, though I must say this company leaves much to be desired.”

She barely contains her throaty laugh, a breath of it escaping through her widening, wicked grin as she steps around the fire and draws nearer Clarke and Lexa. “How your numbers have dwindled, Alexandria.”

“It isn’t an army,” Clarke says, glancing back to her people. “It’s a scouting group.”

“Oh?” The brow over Nia’s obsidian eye arches high as she smirks. “What do you seek?”

“A traitor,” Lexa says, and Clarke nods.

“If your warriors were watching my camp, and you’ve already made it clear that they were, then you know why we gathered a party. You know she escaped.” Latching onto the rush of adrenaline coursing through her system, Clarke steps forward with confidence and says, “You say you can see _all_ concerning your clan. If that’s the case, then tell us where Echo is.”

Nia’s jaw clenches in the firelight. Her nostrils flare as she stares Clarke down. “Not here,” she clips.

Subtly slipping her right hand into her pocket, and keeping her left on her gun, Clarke runs her fingers over the small device Raven had given her. “No?” she asks. “Are you sure about that? Because I think you’re lying. I think Echo _is_ here.”

“You dare accuse me of harboring a traitor?” Nia challenges, and Clarke smirks.

“Not only harboring her,” she counters, wrapping her hand fully around the device, “but ordering her to infiltrate my camp, to gain information and steal our supplies so that your warriors could make an attempt on the Commander’s life and frame us for it.”

The Ice Queen’s expression curls into a snarl as she growls out, “Lies!” She sweeps back toward her warriors at the face of her tent and whirls to pin her gaze on Lexa. “You allow this?”

Lexa is still, serene almost, as she holds Nia’s gaze. Her fingers remain poised around the handle of the sword at her waist, but her body is relaxed, calm. “I allow truth,” she says smoothly. “You have committed treason, and you shall suffer the consequence.”

The two warriors at the queen’s side shift with obvious unease, their gazes darting to one another, to their queen, to their Commander, and back. They hold their weapons with practiced grace, and though the blades never waver, the trust in their eyes does.

Nia scoffs, flicks a hand as if to dismiss such a ridiculous claim, but her body gives her away. She is stiff, tense, and her fingers twitch at her sides. “I will suffer no consequence of a crime I have not committed. Any rogue warrior’s actions are their own and not made at my command. You have no evidence of treason.”

In the ragged pocket of her jacket, Clarke presses the stiff button on the side of the small, clunky device like Raven had shown her, and a crackle of static breaks loudly through the tension devouring the camp.

Her people stand stiffly around her, fingers itching over triggers and eyes nervously darting from Clarke to Lexa to the warriors at Nia’s sides, from poised weapon to poised weapon. The voice that suddenly spills into the air seems to only put everyone more on edge, even as it crinkles around its words like paper being crumpled into a ball.

 _“—of time before they kn— my escape, my Kw—.”_ Echo’s words come through in patches, rough and fragmented like the stutter of Clarke’s pulse in her ears.

Nia’s cool voice is a spine-chilling chorus in the cold sunset, bouncing off the thick canvas of warrior tents and the rough bark of trees slowly disappearing in the waning light. _“Will th— seek you?”_

_“The Com—der will seek my life f— treason.”_

The recording clears up a bit the longer it plays, though a steady rustle like the wispy sound of rubbing one’s fingers together plays over the words like a soundtrack to the queen’s subversion.

 _“Ah, yes_ ,” Nia says. _“I know not whether to reward y— for your silence or punish you for your failures.”_

_“I did as you asked, my Kwin.”_

_“You failed!”_ Nia barks in the recording, her snarl evident in her voice. _“You drew the Sky Girl’s suspicions wh— you were to draw her trust. You were caught in their web when you w— to be the one weaving, drawing them into our trap. You were to learn, yet your fire bombs failed t— kill Alexandria as promised, and now my warri—s are dead at her hand.”_

_“My Kwin, I had no way o—”_

_“You disappoint me, Echo,”_ Nia says, cutting her off and tutting at her in shame _. “M— stomach turns with your excuses. I am tempted to cut y— tongue from your mouth, or per—ps I should take your brother’s tongue instead.”_

 _“No, my Kwin, please,”_ Echo pleads, her voice breaking at the top of her words.

 _“You were a prized warrior of mine, yet y— failed a simple task, and Alexandria still draws breath when she_ should _be in pieces like her huntress. Such pleasure I took in tearing h— apart, but it must be the Sky People who end Alexandria’s fight. I can have no direct hand in it.”_

Clarke’s stomach turns at the callous mention of Costia’s brutal demise, bile shooting up her throat, and she can’t help the way her gaze shifts to the woman standing stiffly at her side. The barely visible tick of Lexa’s jaw makes her ache. The way her knuckles tighten around her sword until they are as white as the fur lining of Nia’s armor makes Clarke want to scream. 

_"S— suspects my involvement in the attack, I am certain, and the Sky Girl seeks to forge a union. This cannot happen if I am to have the mountain. Th— cannot happen if I am to rule the clans.”_

Thumb pressing to the button again, Clarke stops the recording. What needed to be heard was heard, and there is no going back now. She glances around the small circle, taking in the looks of shock and confusion on her own people’s faces. None of them had known about _this_ part of the plan.

“What sorcery is this?” Nia shouts, backing cautiously away from them.

“No sorcery,” Clarke tells her. “ _Technology_ , and the help of a friend.”

Nia startles when the flap of her tent pulls back, when Echo emerges as if summoned, her thick fur-lined cloak still wrapped firmly around her shoulders and her hair pulled back from her face in fresh, simple braids. A young man that Clarke doesn’t recognize but can guess is Echo’s little brother shuffles along behind her, his hand latched in hers. He doesn’t look much younger than Echo but his body language makes him seem like a child.

From what Clarke can see, his face is deformed. The right side hangs much lower than the left and is partially concealed by a large mass of some kind. The deformity makes Clarke think of the two-headed deer. This, she realizes, is what Echo must have meant when she said her brother was ‘affected’; mutated by radiation. Beyond that, he is painted in bruises and scabs, fresh cuts that have stopped bleeding but remain visibly swollen. He has been brutalized.

Echo’s face is alight with victory, with the rush of vengeance, of a freedom she has never known until this moment. Her steps are silent but somehow thunderous as she moves toward the fire and lets its orange glow wash over her. Carefully, she unlaces her cloak to reveal a tight white tank top beneath, strappy and dirt-streaked. Despite her confident smirk, her hands tremble as she pulls the material up to reveal her stomach and chest, and there, wrapped around her waist and secured to her bindings, is a thin black wire, the tiny metallic head of a microphone peeking up from the top edge of her bindings.

“You see,” Clarke says as Nia and the others gape at the wire, “I lied about Echo keeping quiet. I knew if you thought she hadn’t betrayed you, then you would trust her enough to still speak freely about your plan. The escape, recruiting an ‘army’ to get Echo back—it was all a lie, staged. We planned it before I ever even left my camp with your people. Every word you said to her was recorded, and now we have the proof we need to take you down.”

“You will die for this, my _Kwin_ ,” Echo spits, the title now sounding more like an insult than a show of respect. Her bottom lip quivers in the glow despite her rigid jaw and defiant chin. Her arm wraps around her brother, pulling him into her side. “And we will finally be free.”

Lexa moves forward, motioning for Algor and Lincoln, who are standing nearer Nia’s tent, to close in on her. “You will not have your war, Nia,” Lexa says smoothly. “ _Sis em op.”_

The two _Azgeda_ warriors who had stood with Nia hesitate only a moment before stepping out of the way, allowing Algor and Lincoln to pass toward their queen, and Nia sucks in an audible gasp at the surrender.

“I guess you didn’t see _this_ coming, huh?” Clarke says, smirking.

Nia takes a slow step back, her expression contorting with a flicker of panic, and for a breath of a moment, Clarke thinks she will actually admit defeat, but then the woman shifts. She moves swiftly, too swiftly, another shadow in the night.

“Traitor!” she screams in Echo’s direction, the furious cry of a wounded animal backed into a corner. Her hands shoot to the sleeves of her cloak before rocketing outward to send two concealed daggers flying toward the warrior who had betrayed her.

Echo barely manages to move, to push her brother from harm’s way. He hits the ground with a grunt as Echo twists to avoid the impact of the blades. The first zips by her, barely grazing her left ear. The second, though, embeds in her thigh with a sickening squelch that resounds in the early night. She lets out a ragged cry as the blade sinks in, and Clarke hears Bellamy rip open the air with a howl of his own before launching forward.

And then _everything_ just collapses.

“ _Sis emo op!”_ the Ice Queen shouts without a second’s hesitation. “ _Shil ai op!_ ”

Everything is a blur as new figures suddenly emerge from the surrounding tents, spill from the trees, and spill into their circle of chaos. Jasper and Miller are both snatched from behind, their backs yanked up against the firm chests of hidden warriors. The surprise jars them both, and Jasper’s gun falls to the ground as a dagger is pressed to his throat.

Miller hangs on to his weapon, his feet lifting off the ground and finger pressing against the trigger as his arms fly. A spray of bullets rip through the air like hot rain, slamming into the body of an _Azgeda_ warrior on the opposite side of the fire. Clarke watches them puncture with bursts of crimson and cries of pain—knee, thigh, stomach, chest, chin—and the warrior hits the ground in tremors that last only seconds before he goes still.

A gasp tears free from Clarke’s throat as the warrior wrapped around Miller reacts to the sight, eyes going wide in the firelight before flooding with fury. He wrenches the gun from Miller’s hand before thrusting Miller away from him, holding him by the wrist with one hand and raising his sword with the other.

Jasper lets out an echoing cry at the sight and slams his elbow into the stomach of the woman holding him. She bows inward at the hard shot but doesn’t release, and she recovers too quickly for Jasper, who pushes against her arm at the same time the warrior pulls back, and Clarke watches in horror as the dagger at Jasper’s throat dips into his flesh with the movement and rips his neck wide open with a sickening spray. His eyes bulge briefly before he crumples entirely like loose dirt beneath heavy boots, pressing down into the earth like he will never rise again.

“No!”

Clarke’s arm is up, swinging as if automated, her finger jerking back on the trigger of her gun before she even realizes that the scream had come from her own mouth. Her lungs hurt with every breath, her chest squeezing like it is seconds away from caving in, and she fires a bullet between the warrior’s eyes without hesitation. The body falls like a swollen fruit from a branch, heavy and thudding against the ground near Jasper’s feet; done.

Miller’s screams are as loud as her own as he struggles to get to Jasper, struggles to free himself from the warrior’s hold. Then, suddenly, he is tumbling to the ground as a new figure leaps on the warrior’s back, forcing him to release.

Clarke sees the long braids, the angry grit of white teeth in the growing dark, and she knows it is Lexa. She watches as Lexa crawls up this man’s back like an insect, a rapid scurry. Her knees press onto his shoulders as her gloved hands brace around his head. With one sharp twist, he goes down, and Lexa lands atop him in a graceful crouch, one hand braced on the ground and the other gripping the handle of her sword, still sheathed.

She glances up, eyes locking on Clarke’s for a moment before going wide. “Clarke!”

Her name hits her ears, loud and terrified, and Clarke doesn’t have time to register the warning before something hard and rough cracks against the back of her head with enough force to send her face-first to the ground. Her chin hits the dirt, and Clarke bites into her tongue, the metallic taste of blood spilling into her mouth. Her chest slams into the earth, and the air shoots from her lungs like ammunition firing into the night and leaving her clip empty, and for a moment, it is as if someone has cupped their hands over her ears and muted out the world. For a moment, it is as if the ground beneath her has gone liquid, rocking with waves that shouldn’t be able to move solid earth but do. For a moment, the world is spotted and speckled and tastes like grass, tastes like rust, and there is no air. There is no air, and for a moment, Clarke thinks she is dying.

Dying like Finn, her chest throbbing with the sudden, sharp pain of impact.

Dying like Atom, blood coating her tongue and sliding down her throat.

Dying like her father, the air sucked from her lungs and the ground from beneath her feet.

Dying like Jasper, too fast, too young.

But then it comes back. The air rushes into her lungs again as Clarke rolls onto her side, heaving out a heavy cough and spitting her own blood onto the ground. The pain in her chest eases a bit with a heavy gasp, and the spots fall away from the world. The hands fall away from her ears, and reality comes screaming back into focus.

Clarke gasps again as a boot comes down hard toward her face, and she rolls to dodge it, scrabbling for purchase on the ground. A cry of pain sounds above her, and Clarke looks up to see a dagger embedded in the warrior’s shoulder. Using the woman’s temporary distraction, Clarke latches onto a large stick partially wedged under her body, and scrambles shakily to her feet. She swings the stick as hard as she can, nearly falling in the effort, and connects with the side of the woman’s head. The sound makes her stomach turn, the thick stick snapping in two against flesh and bone, but Clarke is thankful to watch the woman drop to the ground, unconscious.

Bracing one hand on her knee, Clarke struggles to fully catch her breath and reaches up to touch the throbbing, tender spot on the back of her head. Her hand comes away bloody, _too_ bloody, and Clarke knows it isn’t good.

She feels a hand wrap around her arm and pull her up, and then Lexa’s wide eyes swim into view.

“You are hurt,” she says, breathing heavily, and Clarke is too dizzy, too nauseated to offer any sort of reassurance, so she just nods.

“Yeah,” she says, and she barely gets the word out before Lexa bends to wrench her dagger from the unconscious warrior’s shoulder. She swiftly wipes it clean on her thigh and then uses it to cut through the bottom of her own tunic.

It shreds through the material, and then Lexa uses her hands to tear a long strip away, unwinding it from around her waist. Her eyes are up, always watching, always aware, even as her hands work at her middle. Wadding the material into a ball, Lexa presses it to the back of Clarke’s head and then places Clarke’s hand atop it. Her eyes are fierce, alight with her fury and her worry, clear in Clarke's vision when the rest of the world is hazy, and Clarke knows Lexa is torn in this moment, torn between staying and going, between head and heart. She can see the struggle, the way Lexa looks at her, presses against her wound like a part of her is made for this and only this--protecting Clarke. It wars with the part of her that is duty bound, that is bound to her people, that knows she must fight, and Clarke knows, too.

They must finish this.

“Stay here _,_ Clarke,” Lexa says, tone urgent, commanding, but Clarke hears the unspoken plea in the vibrations. _Stay alive_.

Briefly, Lexa cups a wet, gloved hand around her cheek, and Clarke knows it will leave a crimson stain behind, but she doesn’t care, and then Lexa is sprinting away toward the clashing of metal and the staccato pops of random gunfire.

Clarke presses the ball of Lexa’s tunic to the back of her head, hoping it can slow the bleeding, but she knows she will need stitches. She can feel the edges of the wide gash under her hair even through the material, and she doesn’t even know what she was hit with—a broken branch, maybe. The bark would have been rough enough to slice through her flesh. Pressing harder to the wound, Clarke swallows down the bile that rushes up her throat with the pain and shuffles after Lexa into the fray. Her people still need her.

There are bodies on the ground, several _Azgeda_ warriors. She doesn’t know if they are alive or dead, and she doesn’t have the time or the stability to stop and see.

“Stand down!”

Clarke hears the shout wrench through the air amidst the chaos of other sounds, and then she hears it again. It is Lexa’s voice, growling and fierce and befitting her title.

“Stand down!”

Her command only causes falter in a few of the remaining _Azgeda_ warriors, and Clarke’s own people won’t stop until they know it is safe to. The others, those Clarke assumes to still be loyal to Nia, continue their attack until another voice breaks the air.

“If you want to live, _listen_!” It is Echo, her tone sharp and angry, laced in pain, and Clarke sighs in relief to know she is, at least, still alive. “Do as the Commander bids! Stand down!”

The fighting ceases slowly, but those locked together do not release. Bellamy has a bloody gash running down the side of his face, but his bicep is wrapped around the warrior he holds firmly in a headlock, and there are two motionless bodies at his feet. Algor has yet another arrow sticking out of his body, though it seems to be a fairly shallow wound, and his knee is pressed between the shoulder blades of a warrior he has pinned to the ground.

The others are detached, some beaten and crumpled, and some still on their feet, ready for more. Clarke can just make out Miller near one of the tents. He is on the ground, face twisted in pain and hand clutching around his arm where Clarke can see visible bits of bone sticking through the gashed material of his jacket. Octavia isn’t far from him, crouched low as if guarding him in his weakened state. She leans a bit too heavily on her right leg like she can’t stand to put the weight on her left, but she doesn’t waver. Her sword is up at the ready, and her eyes are fierce, alert. She will fight until she can no longer stand if that’s what it comes to, and even then, Clarke knows she will somehow find the strength to push herself back up again.

Indra is wrapped around the Ice Queen, her sword pressed to Nia’s throat, and Lincoln stands beside her, one hand clutching his side and the other holding his weapon steady. Slipping a hand firmly over Nia’s mouth, Indra breathlessly huffs, “ _Branwada seintaim en taim set yu daun_.”

“Do not fight for her,” Echo shouts to her people from where she is barely standing, leaning heavily against her brother. She points toward the woman in Indra’s hold. “She has deceived us, and we must not be her fools any longer.”

“She is a god!” one warrior growls, clenching his fists around his two swords as if fighting the urge to rid Echo of her head for suggesting otherwise.

“No she’s not,” Clarke says, shuffling closer and doing her best to keep her eyes open and focused. With every step she takes, the ground seems to shift and spin. Hold on a little longer, she tells herself, blinking her eyes and pressing the saturated material harder into the back of her head. The bite and throb of pain keeps her alert and in the moment. “You only think she’s a god because that’s what she taught you to think, because she made you believe that she ‘sees all’, but she doesn’t. If she could _really_ see all, then she would have seen this coming. She would have known Echo was wearing a wire. She would have known not to speak openly with her. She would have known that all of this was going to happen, and she would have acted to stop it. She’s been lying to your clan for years, terrorizing you all and making you afraid of her so that no one would ever question her leadership, but it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“We can be free,” Echo says, weakly, clutching her thigh with one hand and bracing her other arm around her brother’s shoulders. Her face is pale, too pale, and Clarke knows she must be as close to passing out as Clarke feels herself to be.

Lexa stands tall by the fire, an impenetrable force in the center of them all, and she pivots as she takes them all in. “Stand with _me_ , and your lives will be spared. You will know what it is to live without fear.” Her gaze lands briefly on each _Azgeda_ warrior. “Justly, I will lead you, if only you will be led.”

Silence grows ripe in the air, fat and heavy, until one Azgeda warrior, the girl Clarke recognizes from her first visit, steps forward and drops to a knee in front of the Commander. She says nothing, merely bowing her head and setting her weapon upon the ground, but it seems to be enough, because Lexa does not hesitate to place a hand gently atop her head like a blessing. It is the same touch Clarke had seen her give Echo in the stockade, and it is the same touch Lexa now gives to each warrior who steps forward, following the girl and falling to their knees.

The sight, again, makes Clarke’s eyes sting, the sensation only adding to her physical discomfort, and she feels her gaze drawn toward the lifeless body of the boy whose fist never quite grasped victory and whose heart never quite grasped acceptance, the boy she couldn’t make decisions for and couldn’t save.

Clarke takes a deep breath, blinks away her tears, and focuses on Lexa again. The growing graveyard in her chest will be there when this is finished, when the sun comes up again and fails to brighten beyond the surface.

Lexa draws a large dagger from the metal cuff on her thigh and steps toward Nia, still held firmly in Indra’s grip. Moving until their chests are nearly brushing, Lexa slowly brings her dagger up to Nia’s face. She presses the tip to the queen’s forehead at the top of her second long scar, presses in until a drop of blood beads upon the surface, and then drags the blade down the length of the scar, slashing it open anew.

“The first of a thousand,” Lexa promises as Nia winces and stiffens against the pain. “ _Dison laik ain._ ” She leans in, bares her teeth as she holds the captured queen’s black-and-white gaze, and whispers, “ _Gon Kostia_.”

Clarke doesn’t have to speak the language to understand. Even in the face of heavy loss, _this_ is justice, and she knows that like the _Azgeda_ , a part of Lexa, long encased in shadow and shame, has finally been set free.

“Bind her,” Lexa orders, and Lincoln darts into a tent to find some sort of tether. “We leave for Polis tomorrow.”

Polis, Clarke thinks, chest flooding with warmth. They can return to Polis, and ev—a fresh wave of pain tears through Clarke’s head, shredding her thoughts. She sways on her feet, clamping her eyelids down as dizziness racks her body, and then she feels an arm sweep around her waist to steady her. Blinking her eyes open, Clarke takes in Algor’s face in splotchy flashes, and then Lexa’s green eyes are hovering in front of her, watercolor and wide. Clarke’s knees give out as Lexa’s hand cups her cheek.

“ _Ste yuj, Klark_ ,” she hears, Lexa’s words thick and slow like they have to push through mud to get to Clarke’s ears, and then all the world goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> "Sis em op!" - "Take/Grab her!"  
> "Sis emo op!" - "Take/Grab them!"  
> "Shil ai op!" - "Protect me!"  
> “Branwada seintaim en taim set yu daun.” - "Even a fool knows when to surrender."  
> "Dison laik ain." - "This one is mine."  
> "Gon Kostia." - "For Costia."  
> "Ste yuj, Klark." - "Be strong, Clarke."


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone. Apologies for the wait. Life has been incredibly busy as of late. We have reached the final chapter of this story, and I just want to take a moment to thank all of you who have been so loving and supportive throughout the evolution of this tale. It has been wonderful to share in all your experiences with the story, and to share pieces of myself with all of you, pieces of my vision and imagination where these characters and this story have been concerned. So, thank you, truly, for a wonderful experience, and I hope you all thoroughly enjoy this final chapter. It has been such a lovely, overwhelming, emotional ride to write, so I hope it is an equally immersive experience to read. 
> 
> I wrote this chapter to a soundtrack of "Skin" by Zola Jesus. Give it a shot if you like, and enjoy! Take care, everyone. XO-Chrmdpoet

The throb is steady, a dull thumping in the back of her head that refuses to cease. It isn’t unbearable but it is just painful enough to wake her and make her feel queasy. Clarke takes several deep, cool breaths to try to quell the nausea, and it seems to help. The familiar, continuous beeping of machines becomes clearer as Clarke becomes more aware, aching her way more fully into consciousness, and she determines that she must be in the medical bay.

The memory of the fight comes swiftly back, much more swiftly than consciousness had, and Clarke nearly groans at the thought of the wound on the back of her head. It will likely be paining her for days. Eyes still closed, she lifts a hand to the side of her head and feels the rough material of the gauze bandage wrapped around from the back.

She braces herself for the sting of overhead lights when she blinks open her eyes, but thankfully, the sharp, sudden prick of brightness never comes. The room is dimly lit, dark enough that the patients scattered throughout the bay can easily rest but still bright enough for Abby to have clear visibility of each and every one, and the first thing that pulls Clarke’s attention is the chair pressed to the side of her own cot and the person sleeping in it.

Lexa sits rigidly in the chair, far too rigidly to be terribly comfortable, with her arms crossed over her chest and her head slightly slumped against her shoulder. Her eyes are closed, though her lashes flutter a bit as if she is dreaming or on the verge of waking, and her fingers twitch at her side under her crossed arms like they are searching for a weapon that isn’t there.

A rush of relief floods Clarke’s body at the sight, seeing Lexa whole and unscathed beside her, having undoubtedly remained at her side since their return. Warmth brews in her chest and spreads through her belly, and Clarke’s first instinct is to wake her, to see Lexa’s eyes blink open, sleepy and beautiful, and urge her to crawl onto this small cot with her so that they can sleep uncomfortably together instead of uncomfortably apart. She keeps quiet instead, knowing Lexa needs the uninterrupted rest after too many days of here-and-there sleep that never quite managed to make the shadows under green eyes disappear.

Clarke takes her in like this, every visible inch. Her gaze lingers on the lines of Lexa’s face, the way her brow just slightly furrows, the gentle slope of her plump bottom lip, and the high arches of her cheekbones. Clarke imagines mapping her out on canvas, pressing the organic beauty of the woman onto paper.

Thin lines of dirt and grime are visible at the edges of Lexa’s face, pushed up toward her hairline. It is clear that her face has been only quickly, messily wiped clean, but Clarke is glad to not see her covered in the thick evidence of what they have only just gone through. A part of her still yearns to clear away those last bits of the fray from Lexa’s face, to dip her down into clean water and wash away what remains of yet another war, however small.

Releasing a soft sigh, Clarke shifts to take in the rest of the room, or as much of it as she can from her small cot. She winces as she quietly rolls, the back of her head pressing to her pillow and sending a jolt of pain through her skull, and Clarke quickly takes a fast, deep breath to push her through it. Bending on her cot, she does her best to make out the people on the other beds around the room, but some are covered in thin blankets and some are partially blocked from view by machines. Clarke does see Bellamy, though, asleep in a chair like Lexa’s on the other side of the room. His upper body is stretched awkwardly over from his chair and onto the cot next to him, one arm slung over the occupant and his head lolling atop his arm.

Clarke can only assume the person on the cot is Octavia, and her stomach lurches with concern. She recalls Octavia’s unsteady stance, guarding Miller on high alert and unable to lean her weight on her left leg, and Clarke hopes she has landed herself in the medical bay with nothing more than a bad sprain.

She can make out her mother’s pacing shadow on the window panes of her enclosed office, likely too eaten up with worry to sleep, and Miller’s figure is visible on the cot nearest the office door. The cot closest to Clarke is only a few feet away, and she feels a rush of relief run through her at the sight of the woman atop it but is surprised to see that she, too, is awake.

"Can't sleep?"

Echo doesn’t turn at Clarke’s whispered words, doesn’t even look at her. She keeps her eyes fixed on the ceiling, her right hand stretched over to a cot that has been shifted over and pressed against hers. Her fingers rest atop her sleeping brother's forearm as if she needs that constant light touch to remind her that he is present and alive.

She is silent so long that Clarke thinks she won't answer, thinks maybe Echo would rather have her sleepless silence than any tired conversation Clarke could offer, but then—

"Sleep rarely comes."

Clarke shifts more fully onto her side, her back turning entirely to the chair where Lexa still sits upright, eyes closed and lips slightly parted around her easy breaths. The soft swishing sound of Clarke's cheek against the pillow as she nods seems almost loud enough to echo in the quiet medical bay, and Clarke whispers, "It's like that for me sometimes, too. It's easier, _better_ , with …" Clarke pauses, catching herself. She isn't sure she should finish that sentence, should reveal things about her relationship with Lexa that perhaps Echo doesn't know, that perhaps few people outside their inner circle know. Echo, however, seems to have already figured it out.

"With the Commander," she says quietly but clearly, shifting just enough to send a pointed glance in Clarke's direction.

Clarke lets out a gentle breath, a smile tugging up one corner of her mouth. When she nods again, the swishing sound is paired with a quiet, raspy laugh. "You're observant."

"You are obvious," Echo counters, and Clarke sees her smile reflected on Echo's lips. It is small and brief, but it eases the tension in both their bodies. Echo's shoulders relax more against the cot, her body seeming to almost melt into the thin padding beneath her.

They lapse back into silence for several long moments, long enough that Clarke thinks she could fall back asleep were it not for the steadily growing throb in the back of her head, and then Echo surprises her.

"It was better with Bellamy as well."

There is an ache that rings clearly through the quiet words, a sorrow that can't quite slip into regret but teeters along the edge of it, and it makes Clarke's chest burn. The first response that jumps to Clarke's lips is 'maybe it will be again' but she doesn't say it aloud. Echo's words sound like an open wound, and Clarke doesn't want to press it. She doesn't want to offer any sort of hope that she can't guarantee will ever become a reality, because that would only hurt Echo more in the long run.

So, instead, Clarke asks, "You have nightmares?"

"A voice," Echo tells her, the words grainy and rough as they slither into the quiet. She licks her lips, and they tremble in the dim lights of the medical bay. "Her voice in my head, as clear as yours now."

Stomach lurching with her understanding, Clarke whispers, "Nia's voice?"

Echo gives one gentle nod. "It has been there all my life, a compass with only one direction. To stray is to fail. Even now, I wait."

"For what?"

"Her wrath," Echo murmurs, and Clarke feels her throat tighten to the point of pain when the soft lights overhead reflect on a single tear as it slips from the corner of Echo's eye and slides down her temple to disappear into her hair. She doesn't wipe it away or even seem to notice its presence. She hardly even blinks, simply staring up at the ceiling and speaking to Clarke almost as if she is speaking to herself.

"You don't have to worry about that," Clarke tells her, clearing her throat. "You're safe now, you and your brother. You don't have to be afraid of her anymore."

"I am not afraid."

Eyes stinging, Clarke murmurs, "It's okay to be afraid. It doesn't make you weak. It just makes you human."

Echo turns her head then, her wet eyes locking onto Clarke's in the dim light, and when she speaks, her voice is a broken whisper so rich with the fear she claims not to feel that Clarke physically hurts for her. "She will die because of me."

Clarke shakes her head against her pillow and reaches out toward Echo's cot. They are close enough that Clarke can just barely graze her fingers along the edge but not quite close enough for her to touch the other girl. She doesn't know why she does it or what she expects. Echo doesn't seem the type to hold her hand or even to be physically comforted by another, but the action is instinctual, and Clarke can't help herself, so she touches the edge of Echo's cot and hopes that the effort conveys what a touch to skin might from someone Echo loves. "She will die because of _her_ , Echo," she says firmly. "Don't feel guilty for that. She's a monster."

"She is," Echo whispers, tremors dancing through her words like the dying remnants of a disaster that leveled her towering body to ruins, "yet I yearn for her forgiveness still."

"Why?" Clarke asks, brows knitting together. She is unable to understand. "After everything you've seen, everything you've been through, how can you want forgiveness from someone so cruel?"

"She is my _kwin_ , a god," Echo says simply, as if those few words are explanation enough. "This is what I have always known."

"But it's a _lie_."

"Yes," Echo whispers, "but a lie given as truth to a child is a truth no matter how time exposes its nature." She licks her lips again, releases a sigh heavy with burden. "When I was a child, I worshipped her. I thought her divine. I thought her cruelty just. As a warrior, I saw more. I heard more. She took pleasure in her cruelty, even against the innocent. I began to question her in silence …" She raises a hand to tap her finger against her temple. "… in here, and even those silent doubts bred guilt."

Clarke wants to ask her why she didn't just leave, why she didn't just take her brother and go, but then Lexa's words ring in her mind. _Even those who do not believe, rarely question. Fear of the unknown is too powerful a foe._ Echo had doubts, but she never had proof, and the fear of what could have happened to her, to her brother, if she were to go against everything she had ever known or been taught about Nia, a 'truth' so integrated into who she is and her way of life that she has literally _never_ lived without it, must have been overwhelming and terrifying. Clarke cannot imagine the struggle, and to have done what Echo did to help them—brave, Clarke thinks, doesn't even begin to cover it.

"I finally did what needed to be done," Echo whispers, "for my brother, for our freedom, but her voice remains.”

A ragged sigh releases from her lips before Echo turns over on her cot to put her back to Clarke, and Clarke burns with the sting of that sigh, the sting of those words. She burns with the realization that a part of Echo may never _truly_ be free.

"She feigns sleep, you know," Echo says then, startling Clarke as she hadn't expected to hear anything more from the other girl.

It takes a minute for Clarke to realize who Echo is talking about, and despite the pain that shoots through the back of her head when she presses it to the thin pillow again, Clarke rolls quickly over and pins her sharp gaze on Lexa. The Commander hasn't moved, her body still positioned upright, though slightly slumped, in her chair, and her eyes are still closed.

Clarke narrows her eyes, now suspicious. "Lexa," she hisses quietly, "are you faking?"

There is no response for several dragging moments, but then a tiny, almost imperceptible smile touches her lips, and without opening her eyes, Lexa says, "Yes, Clarke."

If Clarke had anything to throw at Lexa other than her pillow, she would, but there is nothing and she is unwilling to sacrifice the cushion beneath her injured head, so when Lexa opens her eyes a moment later, Clarke can only offer up a forced glare that quickly dissolves into quiet, raspy laughter.

When the sound fades, Clarke lets the silence linger for only a moment, lets Lexa’s gentle gaze envelop her like a warm embrace and remind her that all the good is far from gone, before whispering, “I’m glad you’re okay.” The words catch in her throat with a sudden surge of emotion, and Clarke takes a deep breath that escapes her again in a wet, shaky sigh. Her next words are even quieter than the first. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Lexa’s responding smile is small, lovely, _melancholy_ , like she is intimately familiar with the sensations whirling through Clarke’s system. She knows the chaos of loss and love tangled up inside the same breath, the same beat—occupying the same sacred spaces inside in ways they were never intended to but do all the same. Her fingers dust over Clarke’s forearm before Clarke has even registered movement, and then Lexa murmurs, “I am sorry for the loss of your friend, Clarke.”

Closing her eyes, Clarke sees a flash of the fight, the haunt of Jasper’s widening eyes. The scream torn from Miller’s throat still throbs in her ears like the ringing of her gunshot, the thud of two bodies hitting the ground. Clarke feels the loss spread through her chest like wildfire, burning, burning. Her eyes ache with tears she barely keeps at bay as Clarke swallows down the thick lump in her throat and croaks, “So am I.”

She shifts her arm so that she can tangle her fingers with Lexa’s. “Nia?” she whispers, and Lexa gives a short nod.

“She is bound and being held in the stockade. Your mother has given her a medicine to induce sleep. Indra and Lincoln have taken guard as well as two others. We will leave for Polis after dawn, once your mother deems both you and Algor fit for the journey.”

“Is he okay?” Clarke asks and Lexa nods.

“He is gaining a collection of arrow wounds,” she says with a small grin, “but this one was shallow, little more than a nuisance. He is well.”

Clarke releases a silent breath of relief and nods. Letting the silence slip back in again, she runs her fingers over Lexa’s, one by one, and revels in a quiet moment of physical connection. It keeps her grounded despite the way she feels inside—unsteady, shaky.  

“It isn’t over, is it?”

“No,” Lexa answers honestly. “There will be trying times ahead, Clarke, but nothing compared to what would have been without this victory. Only rogues of the _Azgeda_ or those seeking vengeance for Nia’s capture will dare challenge me with their queen not at their helm, and once they are disposed of, this war will be finished.”

“And then what?” Clarke asks quietly, and Lexa squeezes her hand.

“Then we can have peace.”

* * *

“Clarke.” The hand on her shoulder jostles her, pulling her up and away from images of Jasper shouting victoriously on the other side of the water, his arms in the air and his smile as wide as the river; pulling her up and away from the sounds of young, wild laughter as Jasper and Monty bump each other’s shoulders and finish each other’s sentences, keep everyone feeling light and alive; pulling her up and away from a goofy grin suddenly morphing into a gasp of surprise, eyes going wide with a final breath. “Clarke, honey.”

Groaning, Clarke slowly opens her eyes and blinks her mother into focus. “Mom?”

“It’s me,” Abby says with a nod still slightly blurry in Clarke’s misty vision. “I need you to sit up for me so I can look at your wound.”

Clarke shifts up onto an elbow and holds still as Abby quickly flashes a penlight in front of her eyes and then gives a satisfied nod. Blinking, Clarke notices that the chair next to her cot is now empty. Reaching up with one hand to rub at her eyes, she murmurs, “Where’s Lexa?”

“She is with her people, preparing the horses for the trip to Polis,” Abby tells her, helping Clarke sit fully up before unwinding the gauze from around her head.

“Our people,” Clarke corrects, the words slipping from her lips almost instinctually, and Abby pauses in her ministrations. Clarke thinks, for a moment, that she will argue, that she will say something along the lines of ‘not yet’, or that maybe she will simply ignore the words and change the subject.

She is taken completely by surprise when Abby only clears her throat and quietly repeats, “ _Our_ people.”

A flood of warmth spilling through her chest, Clarke lets one hand fall to her mother’s knee where Abby sits on the edge of the cot. She gives it a small squeeze, and Abby clears her throat again. “It took a while to clean the wound out,” she says, pulling the gauze free from Clarke’s head and holding her hair aside in order to see, “and you needed quite a few stitches. You’re going to have one hell of a headache for a while, but I’ll give you some acetaminophen to take with you. I’ve already packed a bag for you with extra bandages and ointment. You know the drill, and you also have a mild concussion, so you know what that means.”

“Lots of rest,” Clarke says, and Abby nods as she applies a fresh coating of antibiotic ointment to the sutured wound.

“Yes,” she confirms, “so take it easy. I know there are things that have to be done in Polis, but try to be as inactive as possible. I’ve already told Lexa what symptoms and signs to watch for just in case.”

“You talked to Lexa about this?” Clarke asks, amused.

“Well, she is obviously the one who is going to have eyes on you day _and night_ ,” Abby says, leaning back to pin Clarke with a knowing look, “so yes.”

A snort of laughter escapes Clarke and she pokes her mother’s knee, evoking a quiet laugh from Abby. “She’ll take care of me,” she says, and Abby’s laughter slips into a gentle sigh.

“I know she will.”

Those words spill into Clarke like a fresh shock to her system—rushing, relieving, _thrilling_ , comforting. They sound like a new beginning, and Clarke can’t help but to smile.

“I packed sedatives for you as well,” Abby says, clearing her throat, “in case you need to keep Nia sedated.” She applies a new, smaller bandage to the back of Clarke’s head. “The sutures look good. I trust one of the healers in Polis can remove them for you in a few days as well as the ones in your arm?”

“I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” Clarke tells her as Abby drops two small pills into Clarke’s hand and passes her a cup of water from a small bedside tray.

“I had to shave a bit of your hair away,” she says as Clarke swallows the medicine, “but you can hide the spot with the rest of your hair.”

“That’s okay,” Clarke murmurs, setting the cup back on the tray when she is finished before dropping her hand back to her mother’s knee and squeezing it again. When she catches Abby’s gaze, she lets a sad smile touch her lips. “Thank you, Mom.”

“You’re welcome,” Abby says, her voice wobbling a bit. “But if you want to properly thank me, you can stop getting yourself injured. I’d really prefer to see you conscious on a more regular basis and without a gaping wound, Clarke. Doctor’s orders.”

With a quiet laugh, Clarke says, “I’ll do my best,” and then she is being pulled into her mother’s arms, a tight embrace that says all the things they’ve never been very good at saying aloud.

Clarke braces her hands against Abby’s back and lets herself sink in, a heavy rush of breath pushing through her lips as she burrows her face into Abby’s neck and breathes in the familiar, comforting scent of the woman. “Jasper’s gone,” she whispers into her mother’s hair after a while.

“I know,” Abby mutters, holding Clarke more tightly to her. She begins a gentle stroking up and down Clarke’s back. It is rhythmic, familiar, soothing, and Clarke nearly lets it lull her back to sleep before she blinks herself fully awake again and slowly pulls back.

“Have you told anyone about the union yet?” she asks, and Abby shakes her head.

“Marcus and I will inform everyone later today,” she says with a sigh. “I’m sure there will be a few who won’t be on board, but I think they will come around once they realize what all we will be gaining.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“No,” Abby says, “but I know that, at the end of the day, most of them just want to feel safe. They just want to know that there is going to be a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs, food in their stomachs and in their children’s stomachs. For most of us, it’s about security. This union will give us that, even if it takes some getting used to.”

“It will,” Clarke agrees with a gentle nod. “Thank you for supporting this.”

“I should have supported _you_ , Clarke,” Abby says, shaking her head and cupping a hand around Clarke’s cheek. “I should have supported you sooner. I’m sorry.”

Tears prick in Clarke’s eyes as she scoots closer and pulls her mother into another tight embrace. “We’ll do better,” she whispers, and Abby nods against her shoulder, holding her close.

“You _will_ come back, Clarke,” Abby mutters. “Won’t you?”

“I’ll come back,” Clarke promises, “and you can come to Polis.”

“I think I’d like that.”

Clarke presses in, sinking further, and for just a moment, she is small again. She is small and young and taking refuge in her mother’s arms. She feels Abby’s lips press to her forehead, hears her father’s easy laughter in her memory like a soundtrack, and Clarke thinks maybe they really _can_ live again; not just survive, but _live_.

“I think you would.”

* * *

Thumb swiping through a thick track of tears on Monty’s cheek, Raven releases a ragged breath before pulling a thin blanket over the sleeping boy and letting him sink back into the small couch. Clarke watches every move, watches with her heart bobbing painfully in her throat and her arms crossed tightly over her chest, holding herself. She watches without being seen, having slipped into the station just as Raven was pulling herself up from the couch, gently shifting Monty’s head from her lap.

When Raven stands and turns around, she freezes in place at the sight of Clarke. They stare at one another for one long, tense, silent moment before Raven quietly says, “He was up all night. He finally exhausted himself.”

“It’s better that he’s sleeping,” Clarke says, squeezing herself tighter. “Maybe it’s best if he doesn’t see me for a while.”

She can’t bring herself to say any more, doesn’t want to risk a break in voice or composure. She doesn’t want to risk opening the floodgate and allowing herself to be swept up in all she is currently holding at bay. The tightness in her chest, the way her insides jerk beneath her flesh with hidden, silent sobs are like warning signs of the disaster she could become if she does.

Her silence must be as clear as any verbal response, though, because Raven lets out a quiet sigh and shakes her head. She swipes a hand over her face, lingering to rub her knuckles against her visibly tired eyes, and then reaches for the crutches leaning against the wall nearest her. In only a few short strides, she is right in front of Clarke, brown eyes locking onto blue. “It’s not your fault, what happened to Jasper,” she whispers, reaching out to squeeze Clarke’s arm before letting her hand drop to the handle of her crutch again. “You understand that, right?”

Clarke’s nostrils flare with the sharp breath she takes, and she gives a quick shake of her head. Casting her gaze toward the ceiling, she blinks rapidly and swallows against the stinging sensation in her throat. “I’m trying,” she croaks, “but it might take a while to sink in.”

“Yeah,” Raven whispers, moving to lean against the wall beside Clarke. She sets her crutches beside her and pulls her hair down from her ponytail, crosses her arms over her chest as she rests her head back against the wall. “You got a little banged up, I see.”

“Yeah,” Clarke says with a quiet laugh, “not that that’s surprising.”

Raven’s laugh melds with hers for a moment before both drown into silence, and Raven whispers, “Do you think it will always be like this?”

“No,” Clarke says and then lets out a shaky sigh. “I don’t know. I hope not. I think it’s going to get better. With the union, I think … I think things can finally get better.”

“Are you coming back?” Raven asks after another beat of silence, and Clarke turns to look at her.

“Yes,” she says, “but I don’t know when. It might be a while before we can perform the union ceremony. All the clan leaders will have to be informed, and they will all have to travel to Polis not only for Nia’s execution but to take part in the oath, so it could take several days.”

“And you like it there,” Raven says, giving Clarke a knowing look, and Clarke lets out a soft laugh.

“Yeah,” she admits. “I do.”

“When you came back, you weren’t the same,” Raven says, “but you were better, better than when you left. So, you should go, and you should stay there, at least for a while. I mean, don’t forget about us or anything, but if that place helps you, then you should take some time to just be there, Clarke. We’ll be okay here.”

“Actually,” Clarke says, clearing her throat, “I was thinking that you should come with me.”

Raven’s eyes widen. “To Polis?”

Nodding, Clarke says, “You don’t have to, but I think it would be good for you. I’ve learned that sometimes you have to get away in order to get better, and there’s so much you could do there, Raven. There’s so much you can learn and so much you can teach them, so many people you can help, and it’s beautiful there. It’s free, and everyone is so _alive_.”

Raven’s mouth moves wordlessly, and Clarke smiles. “I know it’s a big decision, but you can always come back. You can come back whenever you want.” She reaches over to squeeze Raven’s arm. “Just think about it, okay? I mean, don’t take too long, obviously, but think about it.”

It takes a moment for Raven to respond but then she gives a quick nod and pulls Clarke into a tight hug. “I’ll think about it,” she promises, and Clarke smiles into the embrace.

* * *

Lexa, Indra, Algor, Lincoln, Octavia, and Bellamy are all waiting by the gate when Clarke and Abby shuffle their way outside. Three horses are lined together, and the fourth holding Indra is slightly separated from the others and attached to what looks like a makeshift sort of carriage, though it is more like a wooden plank with wheels, ropes attaching it to a strap that has been braced around the horse’s chest. They must have built it that morning.

Nia is unconscious on the wooden plank, sedated and turned on her side with her wrists and ankles secured to the plank. A thin blanket has been secured atop her, covering her body and most of her face, and Clarke tries not to stare, tries not to think about the fact that the woman will be dead in a matter of days. Nia deserves her punishment, Clarke knows, but she is ready for this to be over. She is ready to move on from all this pain and punishment and death. She is ready for peace.

Octavia lingers on the ground beside Lincoln’s horse, the only one other than Bellamy and Lexa who hasn’t mounted. Her sprained ankle is visibly wrapped, and she is avoiding putting too much weight on it as she slips into Bellamy’s arms. He wraps one arm around her, braces one hand on the back of her head, and buries his face in her hair. They remain that way, just holding onto each other, long enough that Clarke has reached them by the time they separate. When they pull apart, Bellamy helps hoist Octavia up onto Lincoln’s horse, settling her in right behind the warrior, and then pins Lincoln with a hard gaze.

“Protect her,” he says, voice gruff and stern, and Octavia only rolls her eyes as Lincoln gives Bellamy a firm nod of promise.

Clarke places a hand on Bellamy’s shoulder, drawing his attention, and his gaze softens when he turns to her. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” she asks, and Bellamy’s lips pull up at one corner—a sad smile that tugs at Clarke’s insides.

“I need to stay,” he says quietly, “take care of Monty and the others. We’re going to take Jasper back to the Drop Ship, bury him there. I think that’s what he would want.”

Clarke feels her throat begin to tighten again. She has become all too accustomed to the feeling, and as she glances up to Octavia, cheek resting against Lincoln’s back, Clarke sees tears in the younger girl’s eyes. She knows they will begin to coat her own eyes soon as well.

“Yeah,” she whispers, turning back to Bellamy and squeezing his arm again. “I think he would.”

They hold each other’s gazes for a moment before Bellamy opens his arms and Clarke walks into his embrace, wraps tightly around him. “Take care of yourself,” he mutters, and Clarke sighs.

“You too,” she whispers against his shoulder. She hesitates a moment before adding, “And Echo.”

Bellamy doesn’t say anything but the extra squeeze of his fingers at Clarke’s sides is all the confirmation she needs.

When they pull apart, Clarke turns toward the waiting warriors and realizes that there are only four horses for six riders, and she looks to Lexa who gives a nod to her unasked question.

“You will ride with me, Clarke,” she says, lingering by her white horse, waiting.

“Okay.” Clarke gives her mother one last hug before sliding the small bag of medical supplies Abby gave her into one of the horse’s saddle bags, and then she turns to Lexa. “Are you going to mount?”

“You will mount first,” Lexa says quietly, moving closer to help Clarke lift up onto the horse. Once Clarke is settled, Lexa swings swiftly and smoothly up onto the steed and eases into the space behind Clarke. Her thighs embrace Clarke’s hips, her chest pressing snugly to Clarke’s back, and she reaches around Clarke’s sides to take the reins. “Your mother bids you rest,” she whispers, lips hovering near the back of Clarke’s ear. “This way, you may rest against me.”

Clarke bites her lip to tame her smile, and her cheeks flush with her affection. “Thank you,” she murmurs, wriggling a bit on the saddle so that she can lean more comfortably against Lexa’s chest.

When the gate is opened, they begin to make their way out, Lexa and Clarke at the front, then Lincoln and Octavia, followed by Indra with Nia, and then Algor at the rear. They only manage to make it a few clopping steps out of the gate, though, before a voice calls out behind them.

“Wait!”

Lexa turns their horse so that they can look back, and Clarke smiles as she sees Raven making her way out from the Ark, a small bag slung over her shoulder. She is wearing her brace again but is carrying her crutches with her.

“I asked her to come with us,” Clarke says. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course, Clarke,” Lexa tells her, not a hint of hesitation in her voice, and then motions to Algor, who immediately jumps down from his horse and goes to meet Raven. He takes her bag  and crutches and secures them to his horse while she walks the rest of the way, stopping to hug Bellamy and Abby, and then her gaze locks with Clarke’s, and she gives her a small nod. Clarke returns it, still smiling, and then Raven lets out a soft, laughing yelp when Algor literally scoops her off the ground to put her on his horse before carefully climbing on in front of her.

Once everyone is settled again, Clarke gives a small wave to her mother and Bellamy, and Lexa clicks her tongue and kicks her heels and sends them off again. Clarke sighs as she lets her head carefully fall back against the crook of Lexa’s neck, revels in the warmth of being pressed against her, and lets the rhythm of the horse shifting beneath them quickly lull her back to sleep.

* * *

The trip to Polis takes slightly less than three days as they make minimal stops and only take one short night to rest. Clarke sleeps most of the way, mostly only waking off and on to eat or stretch or take a new dose of pain medication. She has to sedate Nia more than once, but it keeps the woman quiet and docile, so it is worth it.

Lexa is a warm constant behind her throughout, pressed to her body, sometimes murmuring quiet words in her ear in Trigedasleng. Clarke doesn’t understand them but the lilt of Lexa’s voice when she says them is a universal language, an affection that is as clear to Clarke as the cool, cloudless sky on the final day of the journey, and Clarke lives in them. She lives in the words, in the lilt, lets them soothe and promise, paint the world in ways not colored with suffering.

The woods begin to thin a bit around them as they draw nearer to Polis, and Clarke is awake, alert. The thrill of returning has sparked in her chest, and she is no longer content to sleep. She takes in the colors, waning in the slow arrival of winter; the way so many trees thin to naked branches, sprawling through the forest, unprotected, and Clarke thinks of the days after Mount Weather. She was the same—bare, unprotected.

She remembers the way the forest embraced her, swallowed her up so that she couldn’t find her way out and didn’t want to. She remembers the ache in her stomach, in her head and eyes and feet and flesh. She remembers the press of the hard ground beneath her body, the way sleep never came warm or welcoming, but cold and lonely.

She remembers the way she hated herself, the way she resented herself and Lexa and Dante and the world. She remembers the way the beauty died, the way the colors ceased to matter and the breath in her lungs felt more like fire than fresh air. She remembers all the shades of giving up, the stages of slipping away, and Clarke’s chest grows tight with the realization that that could have been the end had Lexa not come for her. That could have been  _her_ end, and all of this wouldn’t matter because it never would have happened.

She never would have felt the joy in Javas’s deep laughter or the heavy beat of festival drums in her ears, the fierce loyalty radiating out from Algor’s gentle gaze. She would have missed the pulse of Polis—the generosity of strangers, the wild play of eager children, the spray of the sea against the city’s edges. She never would have felt the oily grit of paints beneath her fingertips, seen the way each color pulled up the pain like a siphon and made something new, something healing, something _beautiful_.

She never would have learned the curve of Lexa’s spine, the swells of her breasts and hips, the bubbled flesh of her lovely scars. Her fingers would never have marked the paths of Lexa’s tattoos, would never have run the lines of her lips and the arches of her cheeks. She never would have known the press of Lexa’s chest to hers, pulses racing in time. She never would have known what it meant to truly be loved by Lexa and to love her in return.

She never would have learned all the ways the suffering fades, all the ways the roads can turn to lead you back to good.

“Lexa?” she whispers, her head resting against Lexa’s collarbone as they ride the last leg of the road to Polis.

She receives a soft hum in question, and Clarke leans more fully back, pressing her body to Lexa’s chest. Her eyes sting with tears, and she lifts her hand to briefly brush her fingers over Lexa’s cheek and jaw before letting it fall back to her lap. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

Lexa doesn’t make a sound beyond her quiet breathing, and Clarke doesn’t expect her to. She, like her people, is comfortable, expressive even, in the quiet. Lexa says so much without words. She lives in the subtleties, and Clarke has learned to read her, learned to appreciate every quiet, lovely expression.

A gentle sigh escapes Lexa, rustling across Clarke’s ear, and she feels Lexa tighten around her, thighs gripping Clarke’s hips and arms encasing her sides more fully. Lexa’s fingers dust over Clarke’s thigh and her nose brushes carefully against the back of Clarke’s head, just above her bandage, and then Lexa releases the reins with one hand to point ahead of them.

Clarke follows with her eyes to see the towering wall of Polis coming slowly into view in the growing dark of the early night just as Lexa whispers, “We are home, Clarke.”

* * *

Polis welcomes them like an old friend, pulling Clarke in like she is being embraced by the city, and she revels in it, in the feeling of familiarity and home. She revels in the glowing lights brightening up the night, in the children’s faces at dawn, running about with their wooden swords and leaf-armor, in the smells of cooking meats and the lively chatter of the mid-day market. She revels in the comfort of a hot bath, the feeling of being clean and new, and the familiar scent of Lexa’s room and clothes and bed.

She revels in the awe on Raven’s face when she takes in Clarke’s old room where Lexa has decided she will stay, when she takes in the city and all it has to offer. She revels in the way Raven smiles like she isn’t broken inside when one of the blacksmiths marvels at her brace before showing her the one he made for his son’s arm and asking for her help in improving it.

She revels in the way Octavia slips into the city like she was born there, like she has finally found somewhere to belong; in the way she finds Octavia and Indra together and content after days and days of awkward avoidance and clipped sentences.

She revels in the way Lincoln laughs with his people, laughs like they were never lost to him, laughs like he was never gone; in the way he and Octavia find their place among the people of Polis, solid and secure.

She revels in the way Algor plops himself onto a stool day after day in the market and winds his fingers through countless strands of hair; in the way he walks with Clarke sometimes, like being close to her is a comfort to him, the way he shoves her with his shoulder or bops her on the head when he wants her attention, always grinning like a child afterward.

Clarke revels in the way Lexa’s body eases inside the walls, how she becomes loose and liquid in ways she never can outside the city. She revels in the salt of Lexa’s skin, the wet press of her lips, the arch of her back off the bed; in the way Lexa slips into her arms at night, murmurs in words Clarke is slowly beginning to understand, and wakes her with gentle fingers and tender eyes.

She revels in being here again, being home.

A sigh escapes her as Clarke wraps her arms around her knees and digs her toes down into the cold sand, her gaze fixed on the waves rolling out ahead of her like they extend into eternity. The sight pulls something up from within her, all the losses, all the struggle, but it doesn’t overwhelm. It is almost as if each aching memory is rocking out away from her with the water, and Clarke feels gloriously small and empty.

She startles when a voice suddenly breaks through the quiet rhythm.

“I feared I would follow you into the woods again,” Javas says, his tone light and teasing as he drops gracefully onto the sand and into the space beside Clarke. His broad shoulder presses to hers. “Another stubborn week of suffering as before.”

Wiping at her damp cheeks, Clarke lets out a quiet, raspy laugh and bumps him. “You wouldn’t have put up with it again.”

“No,” Javas says, shaking his head with a laugh. “I would put you on my shoulder and carry you home.”

“To Polis?” Clarke asks, arching a brow and earning a smile from the man.

He nods, his braided beard brushing against the material of his tunic. “To _Heda_ ,” he says, grinning. “Let her deal with you.”

Clarke’s cheeks flush with the same warmth that floods her chest when she thinks of Lexa as home, and she laughs with Javas. “She wouldn’t put up with it either.”

“This is my point,” Javas says, and Clarke laughs even harder.

When the shared sound filters into silence, Javas sighs and asks, “You did not want to be at the execution?”

Shaking her head, Clarke says, “I didn’t need to be.”

Clarke had been at the beach since earlier that morning when the proceedings for Nia’s execution had begun on the outskirts of Polis. The clan leaders, having to actually be present themselves rather than sending in representatives, with the exception of the Ice Nation, which sent in a general, had all finally arrived in Polis the night before. After listening to the recorded evidence of Nia’s treason, they had all agreed she must be put to death, and the execution was set for the following morning.

Clarke and Lexa had stayed up most of the night talking about it, about the leaders’ reactions to Nia’s treason, about their unanimous agreement to a union with the Sky People, and about how much better things would become once this was finished. Clarke hadn’t wanted to be present for the execution, so Raven had agreed to stand in for her as a representative of the Sky Clan.

“The people call me _Wanheda_ ,” Clarke whispers, shaking her head. “I’ve had enough death, even justified death. I just … I didn’t need to be there. I didn’t need to see it.”

Javas nods beside her, and they lapse back into silence with only the sounds of the waves filling the air. “We are like the serpent,” he says after a while, and Clarke turns to look at him.

“What do you mean?”

“The serpent sheds its skin,” Javas tells her. “He keeps his color and markings so he is the same, but he leaves the rest behind.” He looks to Clarke. “We wear a skin until it does not fit, and then we shed. We keep our markings, but we begin again with new skin.”

A soft groan escapes him as Javas pushes up into a crouch before placing a hand on top of Clarke’s head to ruffle her hair. She still has a bit of tenderness at the back of her head but her stitches have been removed, and she is healing well, and the playful touch doesn’t sting a bit. “Shed this skin, Clarke,” Javas says quietly. He wipes at a lingering streak of wetness on her cheek before rising to his feet and holding out a hand to help her up. “Begin again.”

* * *

Their room is dimly lit with the soft glow of candlelight when Clarke steps quietly inside and finds Lexa on the other side of the room, facing the massive mural Clarke painted for her. Lexa stands on the tips of her toes with her hand stretched over her head, reaching up toward the winding branches of Costia’s name. She turns at Clarke’s entrance, her fingertips still brushing the letters, and a sad, gentle smile touches her lips.

“It is done,” she says, and Clarke hears the relief in those words, the release. She hears the pieces of Lexa spilling free in the wake of them, feels the wash of letting go, and Clarke is overwhelmed with how sad and beautiful this moment is—this moment of justice finally being obtained, of closing the door to the haunting past and opening another to a brighter future.

Clarke crosses the room and wraps her arms around Lexa’s middle, kissing the backs of her shoulders as Lexa eases down into her embrace and presses her hands over Clarke’s arms. Nuzzling her nose into Lexa’s hair, Clarke breathes her in. She smells like sweat and wood smoke and winter air, and Clarke sighs. “Bath?” she whispers, and Lexa nods, her braids rubbing against Clarke’s forehead.

Water beads atop Lexa’s collarbones, slips down her back in thin trails that Clarke follows with her lips and then with her hands, with a soapy washcloth to scrub away the day. She unwinds Lexa’s braids and runs her fingers through the strands before using a small wooden cup to wet it down. Soap bubbles up in Lexa’s hair, forming a foam crown that Clarke blows off the top of Lexa’s head. She laughs when Lexa grabs some from the air and plops it down on top of Clarke’s head instead.

Her breath catches in her throat at the soft sound of Lexa’s laughter, at the exposure of precious pieces that only Clarke can see, that only Clarke is given.

Lexa is the overgrown expanse of ruins, devoured by the wild of her world, of burdens and baggage and ages of loss—lovely in her decadence. She is a cathedral, ancient and hidden and speckled with cracks and crevices, stone and color, shadows and sun, and she is beautiful. Her doors push open with echoing groans, her hinges straining against the sudden pressure of letting someone in again, but what lies within is breathtaking, a wonder deserving of a tender care.

Clarke discovers more of her with every touch, every breath, rustling the thick dust with her presence. It refuses to settle the same as before and Clarke’s cheeks warm with the thought — warm like the flush of intoxication, the dizzy suddenness of stepping into the heat of a house from the cold.

She knows she has been in ruins as well, all her pieces cracked and crumbled, devoured in darkness, but Lexa’s touch is a restoration. Her gentle guidance, her tender gaze, her raw way of loving are like the sun spilling through Clarke’s chest, illuminating all her shadows. Together, they are growing into their brilliance again.

They lay together in the bath until the water goes cold, having washed each other clean. The past slips away into droplets and suds, and Clarke feels free. She knows they have such a long way to go, but the gaping wounds inside no longer yawn and ache. They close with every peaceful day, every tilt of Lexa’s lips, every winding of their bodies; every quiet confession in the dark of their room.

Clarke thinks that this is what living is supposed to be—learning and loss and love, and all the little moments between. It is the sharp air of winter in her lungs and the chaotic chatter of the city. It is the sound of Raven’s tinkering and Octavia’s steadily improving Trigedasleng. It is the morning sun across her face and Algor’s meticulous braids. It is paint on her fingertips and soapy water on Lexa’s stomach.

It is the way she knows, without doubt, that she has so much to look forward to.

When they crawl into bed, Lexa’s back presses to Clarke’s chest, and Clarke watches the way the moon casts its glow through the balcony door. It dances over Lexa’s damp hair, over her bare shoulder, and Clarke feels sleep come so easily, so freely.

“Our people will be joined as one tomorrow,” Lexa murmurs into the quiet, stirring Clarke from the cloudy edges of slumber. "We can have our chance."

Clarke nods against her pillow as she runs her hand down the length of Lexa’s side. Lexa’s body always seems to wind on for days and days, and Clarke loses herself in it, loses track of beginning and end, but the in-between is everything so Clarke is content to be lost.

She feels Lexa’s hand slip over hers, and Clarke tangles their fingers together. Smiling into a sleepy kiss that she presses between Lexa’s shoulder blades, she whispers, “We can begin again.”


End file.
